


(lay me down) right next to you

by soobiscuits



Series: The Pilots of Nagasaki Shatterdome [2]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim, F/M, Genderbending, girl!yeol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-06
Updated: 2017-01-12
Packaged: 2018-09-15 07:33:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 23,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9225044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soobiscuits/pseuds/soobiscuits
Summary: Kyungsoo and Chanyeol discover that the people who are no longer with them never really did leave them.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> after four months of procrastination and laziness + a month of really getting down to churning it out, i've finally completed this. please, enjoy. 
> 
> title taken from sam smith's lay me down, which is... kinda apt. you can listen to it while reading!

“Got everything?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright, then, we will be back here the day after at 2200 hours. Please do not be late, Ranger Do and, oh, in the Marshall’s words— _please for the love of God, ensure that Ranger Park doesn't do anything foolish_.”

“... She won’t, don't worry.” 

“We all know that you will keep her out of trouble, and the Marshall, especially, trusts that you will.” 

“Please tell the Marshall that he can count on me.” 

“Your message will be conveyed. You may leave now, Ranger Do, and, ah–”

“Yes…?”

“Have a great trip, and stay safe.”

“I– We will. Thank you.”

 

\---

 

Someone drops something into his basket and when Kyungsoo sees it—a 5-pack packet of jjamppong—he frowns, then sighs. “Chanyeol…”

“Yes?” 

“There’s no kitchen at the hostel.” 

“Then we’ll cook it in our room,” Chanyeol says, placing a huge packet of honey butter chips in the half-full basket hanging on Kyungsoo's arm.

Kyungsoo fishes out the now-buried jjamppong packet and silently deposits it in a stray basket (containing a lonely can of tuna) he sees on the floor in their aisle. He hopes it belongs to no one. “No one cooks packet jjamppong, or ramyun, without a kitchen.” 

“Well…”

“You're hemming and hawing,” Kyungsoo deadpans, fishing out yet another one of Chanyeol’s choice of food—a tub of doenjang—and depositing it into the same stray basket. Again, he hopes it belongs to no one. “So I take it that you have no snappy comeback for me.” 

Chanyeol pouts, and pouts even more when Kyungsoo takes out the insanely large packet of packs of kim and puts it into the stray basket that's now half-filled. Kyungsoo _vehemently_ prays that it belongs to no one. 

“We’re only going to be there for two days, why do we need this much food?” Kyungsoo gently places the last of Chanyeol’s food choice—a six-pack cans of beer—into the basket and smiles when he lifts his own basket, satisfied at the lessened weight. He then turns to Chanyeol, the smile widening slightly when he sees a withering look on her face. Kyungsoo playfully taps the tip of her nose with his free index. “Why the look?” 

The _look_ disappears from Chanyeol’s face. “What look? I don't know what you're talking about.” 

Chanyeol’s new expression amuses Kyungsoo greatly. A generous dollop of wrath plus a tiny amount of resignation. It’s a strange mix, but it’s been seen on Chanyeol’s face before (when Kyungsoo refuses to give Chanyeol his only piece of hotteok) and it’s, frankly, kind of adorable. Chanyeol doesn’t think it is cute, though, this _constipated expression_ of hers but who is Chanyeol to judge her own facial expressions when she’s not on the receiving end of them. Trust Kyungsoo. He’s the recipient of Chanyeol’s myriad of expressions most of the time. So if he says it’s adorable, believe it. 

(But then again, as Baekhyun would sassily remind everyone, _take Soo’s words about Chanyeol with a pinch of salt_. 

For Kyungsoo’s renowned calm and collected personality crumbles whenever his girlfriend is around, turning him into a type of human, which everyone associates with a certain Ranger Byun, and that is—a sucker for one’s lover. 

If you think that Baekhyun has it bad for Yixing, you apparently haven’t seen Do Kyungsoo around Park Chanyeol.)

“You’re looking constipated again,” Kyungsoo casually says, his free hand guiding one of Chanyeol’s hand to the crook of his arm, curling her fingers around the part where the plastic handles of the basket meet with his arm. “It’s c–”

“Don’t–”

“–ute,” finishes Kyungsoo. A thoughtful expression flashes across his face. “I wonder if that’s how you look like in the toilet.” 

Chanyeol shoots Kyungsoo a scandalised look. “God, Soo, you’re a perv!” She pulls her hand away from Kyungsoo’s arm, ignoring his soft, shocked gasp to stomp ahead. But as Kyungsoo has expected, Chanyeol stops at the end of the aisle. She whirls around and throws a hand out towards him. “Aren’t you coming?” 

The seemingly angry look on Chanyeol’s face and the petulance in her voice ignites Kyungsoo’s urge to tease her, which is something he would never think of doing prior to his relationship with Chanyeol (if his renowned calm and collected personality is any indication) but whenever it comes to Chanyeol, Kyungsoo always finds himself doing the unthinkable, the unexplainable, the _impossible_. It’s been like this for two decades, and Kyungsoo just knows that the number of years of being like this around Chanyeol won’t stop there. And honestly, Kyungsoo doesn’t want it to stop.

“Mm,” Kyungsoo hums, setting his basket down onto the floor. He picks a can of beans off the shelf and pretends to read the label, though Kyungsoo is actually sneaking glances at Chanyeol from the corners of his eyes. His girlfriend is staring at him, eyes round and wide and looking absolutely adorable. Kyungsoo very much wants to shelf the can of beans, pick up his basket (or don't), walk towards her, hold her cute face between his hands and coo ~~(or kiss her)~~. But of course, he’s not going to do that. What would be the point of teasing her in the first place then? Kyungsoo hasn't trained himself to resist Chanyeol’s pouts for nothing. So Kyungsoo promptly ignores his girlfriend’s (still absolutely adorable) dumbfounded stare and continues to inspect the can of beans in his hands. 

Time ticks by, and when Kyungsoo discreetly watches from the corners of his eyes how Chanyeol hasn't given up on her tantrum and walked back to him, Kyungsoo starts to panic. The bus is going to leave without them if they don’t make it to the bus terminal on time and Kyungsoo can’t have that. 

He is about to surrender and wave the white flag when he feels warmth on his shoulders and on a side of his face. He makes to turn, but realises that he can't because _someone_ has glued herself to him. Kyungsoo bites back a relieved smile. 

“Were you… Were you mad, Soo?” Chanyeol timidly whispers into Kyungsoo’s ear, oblivious to the fact that her breaths are affecting her boyfriend’s ear which in turn is doing things to Kyungsoo himself. Kyungsoo is sure as hell certain that Chanyeol hasn't felt the shudder that had rippled through his body the first instant warmth grazed his ear. Good. _Very_ good. He doesn't need Chanyeol to have more blackmail material. (A photograph of him having fallen asleep on Chanyeol’s lap taken by her handphone, as well as a video of him behaving all drunk and doing whatever drunkards do—Kyungsoo _was_ drunk, by the way—is more than enough to ruin him.) 

Kyungsoo hums thoughtfully, eyes still fixated on the can of beans in his hands, though his attention is actually on how Chanyeol’s arms are wrapped around him, the way her chin is digging rather painfully into his shoulder, the way her eyes are gazing at him, the way her breaths are still peppering his ear and the low baritone of her whisper that are _doing things to him_. If Kyungsoo doesn't want to end up in jail for… well, a _crime_ , he needs to separate himself from Chanyeol right now. _Right. Now._

“Kind of,” Kyungsoo replies, putting the can back onto the shelf. He hesitates, but plucks Chanyeol’s arms away from his shoulders even though his entire body is protesting against the loss of contact and warmth. Kyungsoo reasons it as an appropriate action to emphasize his _I’m kind of mad_ answer. Yes. _Yes._ That is why he is picking up his basket, urging his feet to step forward until he walks to the end of the aisle. 

But ultimately, Kyungsoo has, and always will have, a soft spot for Chanyeol. It hasn’t changed even as they transitioned from friends to best friends, from best friends to boyfriend and girlfriend. Kyungsoo will always find himself giving in to her whether he likes it or not. (Most of the time he does.) So it’s without preamble does Kyungsoo turn around and extend a hand towards Chanyeol, who’s still standing where Kyungsoo left her seconds ago. “Aren’t you coming?” He smiles, letting his fondness for her show radiantly. 

He barely has a second to himself before Chanyeol bounds over and practically throws herself at him, long arms circling his body once again, face a little too close for comfort (and for other reasons), breaths fanning his blushing cheeks. “I knew you were teasing me, Soo. _I knew it._ ” And Chanyeol proceeds to smush her cheek against Kyungsoo’s, pointedly ignoring his squeaks of protest of _we’re in public get off me Yeol someone’s going to see us!_

Of course, Kyungsoo expects nothing less of Chanyeol, who compromises with Kyungsoo by decreasing the skinship to lacing her fingers through his. And the occasional butt pats (which Kyungsoo secretly likes.)

 

\---

 

Seven minutes. That is the amount of time Kyungsoo has spent standing in front of the noodles stall, head tilted up, narrowed eyes darting between the two choices of noodles printed on the lit signboard. Both pictures of the noodles look delicious; Kyungsoo is so, so torn. His dilemma stems from the fact that he hasn’t had the chance to select his meal in almost eight years, since the cooking ladies in the mess hall edict the menu and everyone in the Shatterdome just eats whatever they’re served (save for certain food items that they might not want or are allergic to). So, yes, Kyungsoo’s dilemma is perfectly justified, but the reason doesn’t help him in choosing which type of noodles to get. Ugh. 

Just then, he feels a pair of hands sliding onto his shoulders, before the light pressure of fingers rest upon them. His right shoulder feels heavier than the other, and Kyungsoo knows why when familiar warmth begins to fan that same side of the face. “Still deciding between jjamppong and, uh, what’s the other one again?” 

“Jjajang,” Kyungsoo says, eyes still shifting between the two pictures, mind still not made up. “Have you washed your hands? You rushed to the washroom the moment the bus door opened so I couldn’t remind you–”

“I am not a kid! Of course I remembered to wash my hands!” Chanyeol scoffs, but the mock anger in her tone vanishes in the next second as she says, “Wait. I thought your favourite was buljjajang? Why aren’t you getting it?” 

At the mention of the other noodle item, Kyungsoo’s eyes automatically scans the signboard for it and finds its picture. Huh, they _do_ have buljjajang. He must have missed it the first time he looked at the board, the sleepiness of having slept on the bus for an hour and a half still clouding his vision. But damn, the sight of Kyungsoo’s favourite noodle dish makes him salivate. Ugh, how is he going to decide now?

“Just get the buljjajang, Soo. You know you want to.”

“But your tolerance for spicy food is almost non-existent,” Kyungsoo gently says. He tears his eyes away from the buljjajang, forcing them to stay on the jjajang. “And no other stall is open except this one.” He hears a soft hum of agreement in his ear. Chanyeol is still resting her chin on the back of her hand that’s on Kyungsoo’s shoulder, and, unfortunately, her breath (that _does things to Kyungsoo_ ) has been peppering Kyungsoo’s ear every time she speaks. Kyungsoo has been pointedly ignoring the sensations his (poor) ear has been feeling. 

“It’s okay,” Chanyeol finally says after a couple of seconds of silence. Her hand appears in Kyungsoo’s field of vision, a finger pointing at the buljjajang. “We’ll get that–” Her hand moves. “–and that.” Chanyeol points at the picture of the jjamppong. 

What. _What._ Is Chanyeol nuts? “You do know that you’ve pointed to two spicy noodle dishes, right, Yeol?” Kyungsoo moves, arms reaching towards Chanyeol to pry her off his shoulders. He looks at her, and sees her nod, a small smile on her face. “Are you crazy? You’re going to have a difficult time eating them.”

“But you want them,” Chanyeol replies. Her hands slip into Kyungsoo’s, fingers gripping softly onto fingers, and she swings their hands a little. “And since my boyfriend wants to eat those, as his girlfriend, I want to eat those, too.” 

Kyungsoo isn’t convinced. He lets it show with the frown on his face and the furrow of his brows. “Chanyeol–”

“ _Kyungsoo_ ,” Chanyeol interrupts, a frown of her own on her face. But it dissolves a second later to let a gentle smile replace it. “I’ll be fine. It doesn’t make sense to order buljjajang _and_ jjajang when one is just the spicy version of the other. And they’re both kinda dry so the soupy jjamppong is a reasonable choice.” She raises one pair of their hands and gently knocks it against Kyungsoo’s forehead. “Stop disagreeing with me when you know I’m right.” 

Kyungsoo _still_ isn’t convinced. Sure, Chanyeol’s choices are perfectly justified and Kyungsoo actually does agree with her, but the glaring fact that Chanyeol’s tolerance for spicy food is almost as non-existent as Kyungsoo’s tolerance for Baekhyun and Sehun’s terrible jokes is stark in his mind and as her boyfriend, Kyungsoo just can’t ignore that. Chanyeol really, _really_ can’t take spicy food. And her health and safety comes first, no matter the situation, no matter the context. There is no compromising that. 

“I still don’t think–” 

“Ahjumma, one jjamppong and one buljjajang! More radish, please!” 

Chanyeol suddenly orders loudly over the counter, her Korean still flawlessly smooth. It’s as though the last eight years of speaking a mix of English and Japanese, and sometimes Korean, in Nagasaki never happened. But Kyungsoo doesn’t have time to ponder over that, not when Chanyeol has ordered her death sentence in the form of two types of spicy noodles. Kyungsoo is not amused by this turn of events. “ _Chanyeol!_ ” 

The grin on Chanyeol’s face isn’t of any help in decreasing the anger that’s bubbling within Kyungsoo (which it usually does), but it isn’t faltering, either, in the face of Kyungsoo’s impressive scowl. Kyungsoo has every right to be angry, and he genuinely _is_ angry. He opens his mouth, about to let loose his fury when Chanyeol shoves a pair of their joined hands into his mouth. The action catches him off-guard, effectively shutting him up. 

“At most we’ll buy loads of banana milk for me to drink, okay?” Chanyeol bends down a little to meet with Kyungsoo at his eye level, a movement that would have garnered subtle expressions of sneers and smirks back in Nagasaki due to the fact that the taller person in their relationship is female while Kyungsoo is obviously the shorter person. Sexism is still very much prevalent in the field, even with the introductions of female pilots in other domes; though it has gotten better in Nagasaki ever since Chanyeol became Satan Heart’s co-pilot, after Yifan willingly and easily gave up his position to her (and became Jongdae’s right-hand man in the maintenance crew), but some of their colleagues still treat Chanyeol as they have in the past. She is still under-appreciated, under-praised, generally _ignored_. Kyungsoo had been fucking enraged by them but realised that there was nothing he could do about it. In time, he turns a blind eye to them and, instead, focuses on showing Chanyeol his own appreciation and feelings to dispel the negativity from those dumb people.

And this time, it’s no exception. Kyungsoo removes the obstruction from his mouth. “Fine,” He sighs in resignation while wiping their hands on his jeans. There’s nothing he can do anyway, this soft spot that he has for Chanyeol will always make him give in and wave the white flag. “I’ll go grab as many bottles of milk I can from the mart.” 

“Hee, thank you!” Chanyeol scrunches up her face, causing her eyes to squeeze into crescents, in a wide grin that speaks volumes of her gratitude. The expression is simply adorable, and Kyungsoo can’t help but smile as well. “You’re so good to me, Soo.” 

_No_ , Kyungsoo immediately thinks. _You’re the one that’s good to me, Yeol._

 

\---

 

“Ah, it’s cold.” is the first thing Kyungsoo says after he steps out of the hostel, hands immediately shooting up to his mouth, cupping around it as he exhales air onto them. His breath warms his cupped hands for a moment, but when the sea breeze of the night blows at him a second later, Kyungsoo’s hands are cold once more. “Ugh, I should have remembered to pack my gloves.” 

Kyungsoo takes a step off the porch of the hostel, and walks ahead. He makes it to the traffic light that is a short distance away before turning back, eyes darting upwards to a particular window of the hostel. It’s one of the few unlit windows. The breeze blows again, and this time, Kyungsoo shivers. He zips his jacket (the one that Chanyeol bought for his first birthday in Nagasaki) up all the way and tucks his chin into it. Kyungsoo looks at the very same window once again, a fond smile forming on his face. _Well, at least one of us is warm._

Apparently banana milk, albeit having saved Chanyeol from an overdose of spiciness and a numb tongue, doesn’t mix well with spicy noodles. For the first thing that Chanyeol had done the moment she stepped off the bus and onto Sokcho’s soil, was to ask for the location of the washroom. And there she stayed, in the bus terminal’s washroom, for a good half hour, stomach ruthlessly emptying its contents of buljjajang, jjamppong, and numerous bottles of banana milk. Chanyeol has thoroughly learnt her lesson. 

So it shouldn’t have been a surprise to Chanyeol when Kyungsoo tucked her into bed, pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead (after much contemplation), and told her that she was to stay in while he’d be heading out to check on the flower shop that the hostel owner had kindly provided them directions to. As much as Kyungsoo would rather search for it the next morning where his eyes wouldn’t be fluttering shut every five minutes due to the need for sleep, they’re running on a rather tight schedule and getting lost while in search for the flower shop will definitely cost them time. He can’t have that. Kyungsoo and Chanyeol _don’t have time_. Joonmyeon has only given them three days; they have to make good and full use of them. There just simply isn’t time for mess-ups. 

Not when the reason is so important to both Kyungsoo and Chanyeol, that they're willing to return to the place that still haunts them in their nightmares. Coming back to Sokcho will definitely reopen old wounds, but it's a risk that they have to take if they wish to pay their belated respects to their dead families. And they're doing so by climbing Seoraksan, all the way up to Ulsanbawi and leave flowers for them. Eight years ago, Seungsoo couldn’t complete his climb up, so Kyungsoo is going to do it for him. For his brother. 

That journey itself is going to take a whole day, if the hours stated on the attraction’s website is correct and that it takes a whopping four hours up and four hours down. Plus the hour’s journey to the mountain itself and the hour back to town. It’s a whole day affair, and Kyungsoo wants them to make it back to their beds before midnight because they’d be leaving for Seoul the very next morning on the earliest bus. He had acquiesced to Chanyeol’s request of going to the Han, to sit by the river and do absolutely nothing but bask in each other’s company, before they have to return to their responsibilities and reality in Nagasaki. _It’s probably the only holiday we’re going to get until our retirement or our deaths_ , Chanyeol had piped up when they were planning the trip and albeit the last bit seemed morbid to Kyungsoo, he couldn’t agree more. It had taken them almost eight years of service in the field to be able to gather up courage to submit a request, filled with numerous unnecessary documents and justifications, for a short getaway. Being a Jaeger pilot is, unfortunately, a full-time job. 

Kyungsoo takes one last look at the window, visualising Chanyeol snuggling beneath the two blankets—one hers, the other his—on the top bunk. He had kindly told Chanyeol to take the lower bunk, afraid of her falling off due to her habit of moving about in her sleep, but she wouldn’t hear any of it. Chanyeol had stubbornly stuck to her decision, reasoning with _I haven’t fallen off of our bunk bed yet back home_ and what was Kyungsoo to do when faced with the kicked puppy expression he finds so adorable and loves. Also, even though he had shot Chanyeol a weirded-out expression, he still gave her one of his white shirts, the ones that he usually dons before slipping on another shirt, and pretended to not be pleased when Chanyeol told him the reason. 

_Since you won’t be accompanying me to sleep, I want to at least feel your presence around me. I’ll just pretend that you’re hugging me, and that alone is more than enough to lull me to sleep._

A smile plays across Kyungsoo’s lips when he recalls that scene. Chanyeol had emerged from the bathroom, her usual pajama top replaced by his white shirt, and Kyungsoo’s jaw dropped. He was expecting her to cuddle with his shirt, not _wear_ it to sleep. The sight had made Kyungsoo _feel things_ , and now that he is thinking about it again– 

Pain explodes on his face. 

He had walked into a streetlight. The sound of his face and subsequently his body slamming onto the metal reverberates into the night, followed by a heartstopping _thunk_ of his phone hitting the pavement. Kyungsoo rubs at his forehead, the spot hurting most after his (dumb) collision as he bends down to pick up his phone. Thankfully, the cover that Chanyeol has purchased for him (from an online store whilst getting one in the same colour to match) seems to be made out of Jaeger armour material because it’s unscratched even though it dropped from a height. (Or, the height of Kyungsoo is just too short to cause any damage.) 

He unlocks his phone, the photograph of the map that the hostel owner had kindly drawn for him appearing on the screen. (Chanyeol had, unfortunately, somehow managed to misplace the paper, but, _thank god_ , Kyungsoo had taken a shot. _Just in case_ , he had said.) Kyungsoo glances around, pretending to be checking his surroundings to pinpoint his location when he’s actually looking to see if anyone saw his unintentional slapstick comedy act. Relief washes over him when the street and road, and closed shops answer him with their emptiness. 

The relief is short-lived. For fear begins to seep into Kyungsoo when the fact that he is alone dawns on him. He’s all alone on a street in Sokcho, the one place he never thought he’d return to. So Kyungsoo’s not surprised when memories of that trip—the last of the very last—he’d taken with his and Chanyeol’s family flash in his head, and he finds himself tearing up. Kyungsoo tilts his head upwards, eyes rolling back in a weak attempt to stop the tears from spilling. The method doesn’t work, and Kyungsoo only cries harder when Chanyeol’s words–

 _You’re the only family I’ve got left. You’re all I have now, Soo._

–suddenly flood his head and in the darkness behind his closed eyes, all he sees are the smiles of his dead family. Kyungsoo does not head back to the hostel until his eyes are dry.

(Unbeknownst to Chanyeol, Kyungsoo sleeps with one of her shirts, too, that night. He holds it to his chest, imagining that he’s holding her in his arms. Kyungsoo falls asleep a few minutes later, smiling.) 

 

\--- 

 

“Water?”

“Check.”

“Plasters?”

“Uh.” 

From the corners of his eyes, Kyungsoo sees Chanyeol rummaging into her bag, searching for the small pouch holding the medicative stuff. He waits for her, until she emerges with the pouch, fingers brandishing strips of plasters. “I’ve got it! Plasters, check!” The proud smile that blooms on Chanyeol’s face is pretty and contagious, and Kyungsoo barely manages to bite back a returning smile.

Instead, he continues to ask, “Flowers?”

The novelty of Chanyeol’s confused expression should have worn off by now, given how often Kyungsoo sees it, but, alas, it seems that he will never stop finding it adorable. (Kyungsoo is so screwed, isn’t he.) Also, the hilarious sight of Chanyeol standing at the side of the road with unravelled strips of plasters in her hand isn’t helping Kyungsoo in his quest to _not burst out laughing_. He tries to keep it in, but ends up bursting into laughter a second later because _dammit why is she so cute ugh my stomach_. In his rare show of laughter, Kyungsoo drops to the ground while clutching his aching stomach, and the movement must have caught Chanyeol’s attention for he suddenly hears her shouting, though he doesn’t hear her over his loud wheezes. 

“H-Huh, what did you say, Yeol?” 

Chanyeol shoots Kyungsoo a withering look (which shouldn’t be cute at all but...), and points to his hands. “The flowers are in your hands, you doofus,” She deadpans. Kyungsoo can feel that his girlfriend isn’t taking his ‘joke’ very nicely. Well, what kind of joke do you expect from Do Kyungsoo anyway. Chanyeol should be glad that he did not use one of Marshall Joonmyeon’s dad jokes, or Baekhyun’s ‘funny’ ones; those are the _real_ embarrassments. Also, Kyungsoo is fairly certain that Chanyeol has forgotten about the plasters in her hand. The strips are currently wafting in the slight breeze from the sea. Kyungsoo has the strong urge to laugh again. 

“If you thought I'd be fooled by you, Do Kyungsoo, you're sorely mistaken.” Chanyeol scowls and plants both her hands at her hips, plasters crushed within the hand that's holding onto them. Kyungsoo would have warned her about mutilating the essential medical supply for mountain climbing but… in actual fact, he has a couple of strips stashed in his own bag as well so. Kyungsoo can't wait for Chanyeol to realise and start mourning for those plasters, and the body parts she could have used them on. The behaviour is utterly strange, but Kyungsoo’s accustomed to it. It's a part of his girlfriend’s appeal anyway. 

Kyungsoo just shrugs in response. “I got you fooled for a couple of seconds. And that's more than enough entertainment for me.” A self-satisfied smirk spreads across Kyungsoo’s face as he looks up at a scowling Chanyeol. 

Suddenly, the scowl vanishes and a smile replaces it. It's eerily sweet. Kyungsoo feels that something is about to happen. He's right.

“Oh look!” Chanyeol squeals, tone disgustingly saccharine, and she bends forward to edge her face close to Kyungsoo’s. Her eyes are glinting—sparkling with the mischief that Kyungsoo is often acquainted with—and Kyungsoo knows he's in trouble. He's right, again.

“Here's a _little_ boy who looks like he lost his mummy! And he's holding flowers! He's sooooooo small–” Chanyeol straightens herself. “–I bet I can _stomp on him and squash him like a bug_.” A scowl accompanies the lift of her boot and Chanyeol hovers it above Kyungsoo’s head. 

Kyungsoo doesn't expect Chanyeol to _stomp_ on him, but he blurts out his first thought anyway, and brings his hands behind him, hiding the flowers behind his back. “Do what you want to me, but please don't hurt the roses. Everyone’s waiting for them.” 

The effect is instant. Chanyeol looks as though she’s been slapped across the face, _hard_ , and Kyungsoo immediately regrets. Regrets everything. He shouldn’t have decided to spring this dumb joke on her, shouldn’t have decided to tease her. Or better yet, shouldn’t have listened to her request to come to Sokcho in the first place. Everything is a mistake, a huge mistake.

Chanyeol’s eyes dart to the flowers that Kyungsoo has protectively placed behind himself. The small bouquet of six white roses, bound together with twine, peeks out. Kyungsoo sees Chanyeol lowering her leg, boot returning to the pavement. Her sigh is loud even though the breeze is still blowing and their jackets are still flapping, and the pained expression on her face makes Kyungsoo’s heart ache. Dammit, him and his mouth. Of all times to fuck up, his brain-to-mouth filter _had_ to fail him at this time. Kyungsoo wants to slap his mouth, his brain, and himself for causing such an expression to form on Chanyeol’s face. And the guilt doubles, triples, or quadruples even, when Kyungsoo suddenly remembers where they are, and what he’d said the last time they were here eight years ago.

It was a promise the eight-years-ago Kyungsoo made when Chanyeol sat next to him, looking the most frightened he had ever seen her in all of their years together, and her hands in his hands shook so, so much, unable to hide their owner’s uncertainty and fear. Yet, Kyungsoo would take this—a fearful Chanyeol beside him—over a fearful Chanyeol _not_ beside him. Chanyeol beside him happened because Kyungsoo had forced the Academy personnel to make a choice: take in Chanyeol as well, or lose both him and Seungsoo. It was a gamble. A gamble that the Do brothers were willing to take if it meant that Chanyeol would be saved together with them. It was a gamble put forward by Kyungsoo, and seconded by Seungsoo because they couldn't leave Chanyeol behind. There was _no fucking way, no fucking possibility_ of that happening. It was either three, or none. And while Kyungsoo had vehemently prayed for the former, he also hadn't minded the latter; as long as Chanyeol was with them—with _him_ —everything would be _alright_. Because when the Academy personnel showed up and assessed the boys as possible Jaeger pilots and immediately herded them to the van, leaving Chanyeol to stand all alone amongst what was left of Sokcho, Kyungsoo had felt _it_. 

He'd felt The Fear, the _fucking_ fear of Chanyeol vanishing from his life, exiting his world, and not standing _right beside me_. Kyungsoo had not felt _alright_.

That was when he woke up and thrashed against the grips of the men while yelling out _TAKE CHANYEOL TOO, FUCKING TAKE HER IN!_ over and over, but of course, the men hadn't bothered. They ignored him and continued to push Kyungsoo towards the opened doors of the vehicle. Kyungsoo could remember the exact moment when he had blown up and screamed bloody murder—when he was about to be thrown into the van. He could remember the fucking frenzy he unleashed, the enraged punches and kicks he threw at the men before forcing his way past them and staggering back to Chanyeol. He remembered his heart cracking when he saw the blank expression on her dirtied and tear-streaked face, and the way Chanyeol’s eyes were devoid of emotions fucking terrified Kyungsoo. Chanyeol’s eyes were never empty. _Never._ And The Fear within him skyrocketed. Kyungsoo remembered taking Chanyeol’s hand, slipping his fingers between hers, and pulling her towards the van where Seungsoo was shouting hysterically at the men.

Gently maneuvering Chanyeol behind him, wanting to shield her from whatever that may come their way in this proverbial shitstorm, Kyungsoo stomped up to them and shot them an ultimatum. 

_Take in Chanyeol too, or take in none of us._

To this day, Kyungsoo still doesn’t know where that momentary burst of courage came from, but he’s glad it came, for the daring gamble paid off with Seungsoo’s support of an absolutely fierce snarl and the personnel probably realised that there was no way the boys would leave without Chanyeol, not when Kyungsoo was defending her with his own body (and his own life) while Seungsoo was doing the same for Kyungsoo _and_ Chanyeol. If one couldn’t see how tight-knit their relationship was, and how far the distance they’d go for one another, that person is _fucking blind_.

And so Chanyeol was herded onto the van along with the Do brothers, and both Kyungsoo and Seungsoo made her sit in between them because even though they've managed to get the Academy people to accept her, there was no guarantee that they wouldn't throw her out the moment either of them looked away or strayed away from her. The brothers knew in their minds then that Chanyeol would never be able to leave either of their sides for the rest of their lives in this field. Never.

It’s been eight years since that fateful day, and Kyungsoo is thankful, _so fucking thankful_ , for each day Chanyeol is by his side. Despite losing Seungsoo six years in, Kyungsoo is still extremely grateful (but guilty, though) that it wasn’t Chanyeol he’d lost. But Seungsoo’s death drastically impacted the surviving pilot of Satan Heart. Kyungsoo’s thoughts and feelings, his decisions and will, were never the same as they have been before. He found himself thinking, more, about how the consequences of his actions would impact _Chanyeol_ instead of how they would affect him. Kyungsoo had embarked on a one-way solo journey of keeping Chanyeol alive and well in this field where females have no say in anything. Even though sexism has recently let up quite a fair bit in Asia and essentially Nagasaki, Kyungsoo knows that Chanyeol—or females in general—will never be treated as an equal by their male dome mates; Asian countries will always, _always_ have that mindset of males being more capable and therefore more important and valuable than females, no matter how incredible the stats of female pilots or the capabilities of female engineers are.

So, Kyungsoo counts on no one. No one but himself to ensure Chanyeol’s safety and survival. The two-man job unfortunately became a solo mission, but Kyungsoo proceeds with it all the same; if anything, his determination and willpower only became stronger and tougher in order to compensate for the lack from his deceased brother. And Kyungsoo’s silent promise to Chanyeol, the promise that she will never know of, rings in his head every single day. Reminding him, reminding him–

_I will protect you with my life, Chanyeol. I will._

–reminding him.

Which is why, even as silence descends upon them, though not for long because Sokcho is never void of sea breezes—these bouts of winds are constants and always welcomed by the folks, especially by those who rely on them to make a living, Kyungsoo knows he has to do something to alleviate the pain caused by him and his dumb brain.

The breeze comes, their unzipped jackets flapping and making sounds that Ranger Oh would immediately associate with farts and proceed to burst out laughing (only to stop when Jongin gives him a deadpanned expression). 

“I'm sorry,” Kyungsoo says. He whips the bouquet back to the front and stands up. Placing the flowers in Chanyeol’s hands, Kyungsoo takes the crushed plasters from her and attempts to smooth them out on his thigh. “I shouldn't have said that. I'm sorry… Y– _Chan_ yeol.” 

The breeze still blows, and their jackets still flap. The ‘fart’ sounds the white noise of the bus stop. Kyungsoo packs the crumpled plasters (he couldn't save them much) back into Chanyeol’s medical pouch, and zips the bag up. He moves it over to his, leaning it against the bus stop bench right next to his. Kyungsoo looks at the bags fondly, before realising that he probably looks like a creep for staring at his and Chanyeol’s bags and decides to sit on the bench instead.

Resting his elbows on his knees, Kyungsoo hunches and looks straight ahead. Chanyeol is still in his peripheral vision, and he sees her move before feeling her warmth seep through the layers of shirt and jacket on his arm and jeans on his thigh as she sits down next to him. The movement of the bouquet twirling in her hands that Kyungsoo notices from the corners of his eyes distracts him, but Kyungsoo stubbornly keeps his eyes looking dead ahead. He doesn’t want to see Chanyeol’s face right now, not when he knows that whatever expression she has is all his fault. 

But Kyungsoo can’t find it in himself to ignore Chanyeol for long. Not when her _it’s okay, you don’t have to apologise_ after a moment of silence is so soft, so _broken_ , and so heart shattering like her voice from one year ago when they were fighting about Chanyeol going in Yifan’s stead as Kyungsoo’s co-pilot to save Lys Halo. Kyungsoo really wants to punch himself in the face for his lack of foresight. 

“I shouldn’t have teased you back,” Chanyeol murmurs, and Kyungsoo observes that she has stopped twirling the bouquet. Turning his head slightly, he sees that the bouquet is now cradled in her arms and when his eyes finally drag themselves up to her face, Kyungsoo unconsciously swears out loud. _Fuck_ , Chanyeol’s trying not to cry. 

Amidst her weak yet seemingly genuine laughter at Kyungsoo’s rare display of unwitting diction, Kyungsoo gently pulls her into his arms and tightly wraps them around her. “I am so sorry,” Kyungsoo fiercely says, for the umpteenth time, as he tucks her head under his chin and kisses her crown. “I am sorry, I am sorry, I am sorry. You shouldn’t be crying–” 

Chanyeol bursts into tears. 

“–ah fuck– hey, s-stop giggling!” Kyungsoo dips his head down to Chanyeol just in time to see a small smile spreading across her face. It’s small, but Kyungsoo sees its genuinity. Removing an arm from around her, Kyungsoo deftly wipes away the tears streaming down Chanyeol’s face. “I didn’t mean to make you cry. I had only wanted to make you laugh, but apparently my joke wasn’t funny,” Kyungsoo apologises as he cleans her face, frowning a little when Chanyeol keeps fidgeting while sniffling and giggling to herself. It’s adorable, but Kyungsoo is never going to admit _that_. “Sheesh, pick one already; you can’t cry and laugh at the same time, Miss Park.” He bites back a knowing smile, and taps the tip of her nose playfully. 

Chanyeol _harrumphs_. “Fine, I’ll cry then.” And she erupts into the most fake and exaggerated cry Kyungsoo has ever seen from her. Kyungsoo can’t help but burst out laughing, his eyes scrunching shut as he feels tears of joy welling. He stops laughing when his stomach starts to hurt and when Kyungsoo reopens his eyes, he realises that Chanyeol has stopped. 

“You finally smiled.” 

Kyungsoo freezes. “Wha–”

“The instant you said what you said, I already knew you’d be regretting it, and would be beating yourself up on the inside,” Chanyeol softly says, resting her chin on Kyungsoo’s shoulder, eyes staring straight at Kyungsoo’s. The way her eyes pierce Kyungsoo’s jolts his heart, because Chanyeol is doing it again—seeing through him, reading him like an open book. She does it all the time, and this time is no exception. Kyungsoo doesn’t know if the jolt of his heart is good or bad, but eventually he decides that he can no longer withstand her strong gaze. It’s _doing things_ to him. 

Kyungsoo makes a move to turn away but Chanyeol’s hand is on his face in an instant, palm cradling the jaw of that side of Kyungsoo’s face, clearly telling him that he’s not allowed to look away from her. “Look at me,” Chanyeol murmurs, and as though her voice is that of a siren’s and her words are from a siren’s song, Kyungsoo returns his eyes to where they were gazing at seconds before. “Don’t turn away.” 

The hand on Kyungsoo’s face is cold on his skin, but a familiar warmth stealthily slips past the chill to emanate a familiar warmth. Kyungsoo barely manages to stop himself from rubbing his face against Chanyeol’s cupped hand, and instead focuses on his girlfriend and her words. 

“I knew I had to do something to lessen your guilt,” Chanyeol says. Kyungsoo sees sadness in her eyes and he instinctively drops his eyes. He can’t see her reaction but if Chanyeol had flinched in response, her tone doesn’t betray her hurt. “Though I really couldn’t stop myself from crying because your words did strike a painful spot on my–” Chanyeol coughs lightly. “–heart.” 

At that word which Chanyeol said rather brokenly, Kyungsoo finally lifts his gaze up from Chanyeol’s lips, where he’s been watching them form the words she'd spoken, to her eyes. There’s a mixture of sadness, regret, and happiness and mischief in them, and Kyungsoo mentally sighs when he spies tears welling up in the corners again. “I’m sorry,” Kyungsoo softly says, thumb reaching up to wipe at them. “I shan’t joke with you anymore in the future if my jokes are only going to make you sad and cry like this.” Kyungsoo hopes that the hand on her waist, pads of his fingers pressing into Chanyeol’s jacket, and the apologetic expression on his face can convey how incredibly sorry he really, _really_ is.

It seems that Chanyeol has gotten the message, though Kyungsoo isn’t certain if the light that’s returning to her eyes is a result of his neverending apologies or something else. Despite his confusion, Kyungsoo is relieved. He never wants to see blankness in them, not when they’re meant to sparkle and light up the world, and fill it with her unique brand of infectious happiness. Kyungsoo has known all along that he’s infinitely happier whenever he’s around Chanyeol, with this fact more often than not being told and teased by their friends (especially Baekhyun and Sehun; _ugh_ ) and maintenance crew colleagues. Heck, even Marshall Joonmyeon comments on it from time to time after sending Chanyeol out of the room and he just _casually_ says, _“Chanyeol is really good for you, Kyungsoo.”_

And she is. Chanyeol truly is good, great, and wonderful for Kyungsoo. While there are seven wonders on Earth, there’s only one wonder for Kyungsoo and that is Chanyeol. (That was cheesy as fuck but Kyungsoo can _seriously_ wax lyricals about how _good_ Chanyeol is for him.) 

“No!” Chanyeol squeaks, her voice going a tad too high and it cracks. She coughs, and Kyungsoo sniggers while patting her back. Chanyeol shoots him a death glare, but Kyungsoo just shrugs while attempting to school his expression to neutrality. He fails. 

Chanyeol glowers, but she softens when Kyungsoo mouths a _I’m sorry_ and continues to say, “You can joke with me, but I’m going to need to teach you how.” And the way she proudly puffs out her chest, the movement causing the bouquet of flowers that was on her thighs to almost roll onto the pavement, causes Kyungsoo to burst out laughing once again. See, this is how Chanyeol is good for him; he laughs so much when she’s with him. 

Kyungsoo is _happy_ when Chanyeol’s with him.

And as Kyungsoo’s laughter dies down with the appearance of Chanyeol’s deadpanned expression, Chanyeol suddenly leans in to press a light, sweet kiss to his cheek. It surprises Kyungsoo, but he recovers just in time to feel her smile on his skin, and all is well again.

(Though, they almost missed the bus because Kyungsoo was too enveloped in the sweetness of the moment and Chanyeol had somehow managed to doze off on Kyungsoo’s shoulder and no one was watching out.) 

 

\---

 

The bus hurtles on the road, enroute to Seoraksan. In their seats, Chanyeol is resting her head on Kyungsoo’s shoulder while Kyungsoo rests his on hers. Their hands are entwined on Chanyeol’s thigh, with Kyungsoo’s thumb gently stroking hers; Chanyeol’s other hand is in the crook of Kyungsoo’s elbow, while Kyungsoo’s other hand is gripping tightly onto the metal bar installed on the back of the seats in front of them. It is _crucial_ that Kyungsoo grips the bar tightly as though their lives depend on his grip, though, technically, their lives _do_ depend on how tight Kyungsoo’s grip is. 

“Fucking bus is a rocket,” Kyungsoo complains under his breath. He lets slip another choice word when the bus jerks violently and both of them literally _float above the seats_ for a split second, before their buttocks slap back down onto the vinyl and Kyungsoo’s head knocks onto Chanyeol’s, _hard_. Chanyeol’s grunt of pain fuels Kyungsoo’s simmering rage. “The driver doesn’t know what is ‘safe driving’, does he. Ugh.”

Kyungsoo is so simmered in his anger that he doesn’t notice Chanyeol removing her hand from his elbow until it’s cupping a side of his face. It’s a repeat of what happened at the bus stop, but this time, Kyungsoo turns to look at Chanyeol first without needing her to push. The amused smile on his girlfriend’s face tells Kyungsoo that Chanyeol is probably going to say something unrelated to the situation at hand. He’s right (again).

“You’re so cute when you’re angry.” 

If it were anyone else, the accompanying tilt of a head and a feline grin would have pissed Kyungsoo off a lot, but this is Chanyeol we’re talking about, so instead of flaring up, Kyungsoo deflates with a resigned sigh. He drops his head onto Chanyeol’s shoulder, and after a moment of contemplation, Kyungsoo releases his (aching) hand from the bar. It’s probably a bad idea to do so but there’s only so much strength the poor hand can unleash before it goes limp and becomes useless. Kyungsoo can’t have that, not when he hasn’t _coughscoughscoughs_ with his baby girl yet. Also, he’s a Jaeger pilot who needs _both_ his hands to control a Kaiju-killing machine. And, ah, has it been mentioned that said hand is Kyungsoo’s _dominant_ hand? 

So, to hell with safety; they won’t die from a seatbelt-less ~~rollercoaster~~ bus ride. Probably. 

And it seems that Chanyeol agrees with Kyungsoo, for his face and the hand laced with Chanyeol’s suddenly feel cold, while his aching hand is enveloped with a familiar heat. With his head still resting on Chanyeol’s shoulder, Kyungsoo lazily tilts it down and sees Chanyeol holding onto his right hand. The way she handles it makes Kyungsoo’s hand seem like a prized treasure. He inexplicably smiles, but soon cries out softly in pain when Chanyeol attempt to straighten his curled fingers. Having held onto the bar for almost thirty minutes, it’s no fucking surprise that his hand would be _stuck_. Hell, it’s a miracle that no bones were broken when Kyungsoo ungripped the bar and slowly brought it down to his thigh. 

Kyungsoo watches, with unbidden trepidation, as Chanyeol gently position her fingers on his fourth finger and a sharp cry of pain rings out above the roar of the bus’ engines when it is straightened with a single, quick move of Chanyeol’s fingers. It hurts so, so much, and Kyungsoo wants to tell Chanyeol to stop, to leave his hand alone. Let it rot, let it be stuck in that position for all eternity, and even if he has to apologise to her for the rest of his life because of his immobile dominant hand who will definitely not be able to satisfy her during _coughscoughscoughs_ , so be it. Kyungsoo is in so much pain and _fuck_ , only two fingers have been repositioned. 

“C’mon, Soo, it doesn’t hurt _that_ bad.”

Kyungsoo has somehow buried his face into Chanyeol’s neck, the jacket’s smooth and soft fabric soothing on his face, and even though he’s (super embarrassed and) reluctant to leave it, Kyungsoo emerges from it anyway to give his unknowing girlfriend a blatant _you think_ expression. Chanyeol’s face turns sheepish. “Ah, well.” 

“Just get on with the rest,” Kyungsoo mutters as he dives back into his comfort zone that is Chanyeol’s comfy neck. He nuzzles into it, sighing contentedly after settling. But, Kyungsoo stiffens the instant he feels Chanyeol’s fingers sliding into position on his third finger. He’s about to mentally prepare himself when the same sharp pain shoots through him without warning. Kyungsoo’s pained cry is muffled by Chanyeol’s jacket, though he clearly feels her jerk and Kyungsoo regrets not suppressing his discomfort when he fully knows how Chanyeol reacts to him in pain, or danger. 

Moving his soon-to-be-numb legs, and jostling his bag and Chanyeol’s leg in the process, Kyungsoo removes his head from Chanyeol’s shoulder altogether. He makes sure that the reluctance is securely hidden beneath his smile as he dips his head to look up at Chanyeol. “Hey, I’m okay.” 

Chanyeol’s eyes dart to his. She stays silent. Kyungsoo hums, lifting his head back up and it’s then does he discover that his left hand is clenched on his thigh. Huh, when did it do that and how does Kyungsoo not know? Either way, he unclenches it, sends a short, little prayer to whoever for the easy and _painless_ action, before placing it over Chanyeol’s hands which are still on his right hand. His thumb starts to gently stroke, hoping to soothe Chanyeol. “I’m really alright, Yeol. You should continue.” 

“You sure?” Chanyeol’s whisper is soft and loses out against the loudness of the bus, but Kyungsoo hears it. He also hears the uncertainty, and how small Chanyeol should be feeling right now. It hurts Kyungsoo, hurts him to witness this insecure side of Chanyeol where she thinks that she’s incapable of doing things, unable to set things right. It _kills_ Kyungsoo whenever this side appears during their simulation training sessions, where mistakes will always inevitably happen but Chanyeol just– just curls inwards and refuses to meet his eyes. No matter how Kyungsoo tries to coax her out of it, she doesn't accede. Chanyeol is so much more than this, so fucking capable in everything she does, and everyone can see it but her. Kyungsoo doesn’t know how to get her to realise just how amazing, how _awesome_ she is. 

Kyungsoo firmly nods. “I’m sure.” Then, he softens, leans into Chanyeol’s side. “You have to do this for me. If you don’t, how will I be able to fin–” Kyungsoo’s eyes blow wide and he shuts himself up. _Shit._ The fuck did he almost–

“Huh? Why’d you stop talking? Continue, Soo.” 

Chanyeol looks so innocent, Kyungsoo almost wants to pretend that he hasn’t said anything, hasn’t _thought_ of… y’know. Ugh, his brain-to-mouth filter is failing him _yet again_. Kyungsoo needs to have a word with his brain. 

“W-Well,” Kyungsoo begins, stuttering right off the bat because _how to tell her??_ He inhales deeply, removes himself from her side before shifting slightly to face her. The confused expression on Chanyeol’s face almost erodes Kyungsoo’s willpower, but he pushes through. “If my right hand can’t move, then I– I can’t, um, s-sa- _satisfy_ you during… y’know, b-before I– I, _mmmmmm_ into you, and, well, we just– just haven’t… done. It.” Kyungsoo knows that his face is red as fuck and he feels like imploding. He glances up at his girlfriend, curious about her reaction to his incoherence.

Chanyeol’s face is still so serene. Then, she blinks. And blinks. And, _oh_ , she’s got it. Chanyeol’s face turns _so_ red, that for a second there, Kyungsoo thinks that someone poured fresh blood on her face because _holy shit that is one fierce blush_. Unable to withstand the sight of his girlfriend looking so uncomfortable, what with her eyes darting from left to right and her teeth appearing to nibble on her lower lip (and _doing things to Kyungsoo_ ), Kyungsoo pulls her towards him and he wraps his arms around her. He’s greeted by the bouquet of roses, which Chanyeol has carefully slotted into the umbrella holder installed below the windows. Thank goodness they did not place it between them; it’d be squashed right now. 

Focusing his eyes on the roses, Kyungsoo clears his throat and decides to save the awkward situation he’s _stupidly_ gotten them into. Ugh, brain-mouth filter. _What_ brain-mouth filter? Kyungsoo really needs to have a word with his brain. 

“I-I was just kidding!” Kyungsoo laughs awkwardly. Super. Awkwardly. He cringes at his forced laughter. “That was a joke! Ah-ha-ha-ha! It’s funny, right!” Kyungsoo wants to disappear off the face of the Earth. Someone help him. 

“I don’t think you were kidding though,” Chanyeol replies, and she pushes herself out of Kyungsoo’s embrace. Her strong gaze takes Kyungsoo aback, and he wants to not look at her but then Chanyeol is leaning forward and their noses bump, lips grazing, breaths mixing in the barely-existent space between them. “And, I _would_ be sad if your hand can’t move, and can’t _satisfy_ me.” Chanyeol’s smirk is _downright suggestive_. 

Kyungsoo gulps. 

(Kyungsoo spends the remaining bus journey with his hands firmly, and painfully, clenched in his jacket pockets as Chanyeol rests her head on his shoulder, an arm looped through his, while both hands draw circles on his thigh and Kyungsoo pretends to not notice how _fucking close_ she’s getting to–

The rocket speed of the bus is something Kyungsoo’s grateful for now.) 

 

\---

 

“Soooooooo, wait for meeeeeeee!” 

Halting, Kyungsoo turns back, and chuckles when he sees Chanyeol sitting on a step, arms draped over the lower barricade railing. Her head is leaning on it, hands outstretched towards him and fingers making grabby actions. “I’m tired,” Chanyeol whines. “I can’t walk anymore. Carry me! Carry meeeee, Soo!” And the speed of Chanyeol’s fingers’ grabby action increases. 

Kyungsoo’s chuckle grows to soft laughter, his shoulders shaking with amusement. Chanyeol is such a baby. ~~His baby girl, though.~~ And as with what all adults respond to such actions from babies, there is no ignoration for Kyungsoo traipses back down and, without hesitation, slips his fingers between hers. Exerting a little of his strength, Kyungsoo pulls Chanyeol away from the railing and towards him. 

Seeing how his girlfriend’s eyes are sparkling with a familiar glint, how her face is bright with playfulness, Kyungsoo expects mischief. He steels himself, and receives it in the form of an armful of Park Chanyeol. “Oof,” Kyungsoo grunts when Chanyeol falls into his arms, giggling in that high pitch Kyungsoo has grown to love over the years. Her arms circle his neck, face finding solace from the cold(er) mountain air in Kyungsoo’s neck. He’s fairly certain that Chanyeol knows her warm breaths are affecting him, since she’s half blowing air out from her mouth and probably half giggling at how Kyungsoo’s body is shuddering from the split second change of temperature on his neck. 

“Yah, stop it.” Kyungsoo attempts to angle his neck away from Chanyeol’s mouth, but her arms are tight around his neck and oh god, her lips seem to be _on his skin now_. Kyungsoo stiffens instantly, prying hands freezing on Chanyeol’s jacket-covered arms. “C-Chan–”

A light pressure of Chanyeol’s lips against his skin, and a second later, it’s gone. Her face materialises in front of his, a mischievous grin playing across her lips. Kyungsoo’s eyes unconsciously drop to them. They’re chapped and peeling, it must hurt whenever Chanyeol licks her lips; Kyungsoo wants to remind her to apply their shared lemon-flavoured lip balm. 

Yet, the pair of lips vanishes a couple of seconds later, and Kyungsoo whirls around, almost slipping on the step he’s standing on, when he hears a familiar voice calling his name. He sees Chanyeol a dozen of steps ahead of him, waving one long arm. The mischievous grin is still so proudly displayed on her face. 

“C’mon!” She shouts. “Stop slacking and get up here! We don’t have all day!” 

The nerve of Chanyeol to insinuate that Kyungsoo was _resting_ when she was the one who– _Sheesh._

Kyungsoo just sighs, deciding against shooting his girlfriend a rebuttal because what is the point of that when Chanyeol will just shoot one back and it’ll no doubt escalate into a quarrel. Kyungsoo doesn’t want to quarrel on Seoraksan, doesn’t want to quarrel with Chanyeol at all. So, he just hikes back up, and slips his hand into Chanyeol’s grabby one. She giggles, and the mischief melts away to reveal the bright and beautiful smile that’s uniquely Chanyeol. 

It’s practically impossible to not be affected, but Kyungsoo slaps a deadpanned expression onto his face _just because_. Yet, at Chanyeol cheekily sticking out her tongue in response, a disbelieved smile blooms on Kyungsoo’s face anyway.

 

\---

 

The view is absolutely stunning. For someone whose constant view from his room and workplace is the vast sea and a concrete jungle for eight years, the sight of never-ending green green green laying beneath an equally limitless blue white blue is beyond welcomed, and simply beautiful. And when it’s paired with the back view of a tall and lanky young woman, the view is even more breathtaking. 

Standing a couple of feet away from Chanyeol, who’s leaning against the railing and has her hands gripping onto the lone pole displaying the South Korean flag, Kyungsoo holds his breath. Having absorbed enough of the stunning view Seoraksan has to offer—an uncountable number of trees growing on mountains that spread as far as the eye can see, and right in front of them is the renowned and majestic Ulsanbawi—Kyungsoo has repositioned his gaze. The clouds aren’t obscuring the sun, allowing its rays to dance across the canopies of trees, making the shades of green to be lighter than they actually are. For Chanyeol, the sunlight showers her completely, causing an ethereal glow around her. 

In Kyungsoo’s eyes, Chanyeol looks like a goddess that had descended from the heavens. 

Usually, back at the dome, the sight of Chanyeol doesn’t render Kyungsoo breathless; he only finds himself smiling, _a lot_. He also finds himself doing the dumbest of things for his girlfriend-co-pilot, such as snatching several pieces of hotteok even though he’s being given numerous stink-eyes from his dome mates queuing behind him, or acquiescing to Chanyeol’s requests for replacing his phone cover to a matching one with hers as well as matching bedsheets. (Kyungsoo _thanks the heavens_ for Chanyeol not wanting to match outfits as well; he is not going to survive the teasing from their friends.) 

Yet, at this moment, he’s unable to breathe. Air lodges in Kyungsoo’s throat, as he gazes, completely enraptured, at the young woman standing before him. She is glowing, shining brightly, like a fiery star in the galaxies. And Chanyeol is. She’s always been a star in Kyungsoo’s eyes, lighting up his otherwise dull and monotonous world with her unique brand of happiness and delight. Kyungsoo will never admit it to anyone, but he thinks that it’s fate that Chanyeol moved into the house next to his all those years ago. Kyungsoo is certain that they’re fated to be together, no matter if they’re friends or something more. For as long as Chanyeol is there right next to him, Kyungsoo feels strong. Feels invincible. And this feeling is especially useful, since he’s a Jaeger pilot who constantly wagers his life on the gambling table with Kaijus. 

Kyungsoo is so focused on Chanyeol, he doesn’t register anything at all. He only snaps out of his daze when he feels his feet moving without his knowledge, and the bouquet leaving his hands. Kyungsoo comes to to Chanyeol smiling at him, white roses adorning a side of her face as she tilts her head towards the bouquet; the sun is still beaming its rays down on her, a halo above her head. In a dumb moment, Kyungsoo briefly wonders if that is how Chanyeol will look like on their wedding day, smushing her face into a bouquet as she gazes at him with the same fond smile on her simply gorgeous visage. 

“Sorry, I spaced out.” Kyungsoo mentally slaps that thought away, and returns the smile, hand reaching up to his girlfriend’s face, fingers brushing stray strands of hair away from her face. The mountain breeze is gentle, much softer and more comfortable than its counterpart down in town. Their jackets aren’t making fart sounds. “Are we beginning now?” 

Chanyeol nods. “I wasn’t going to start without you. Everyone would be upset.” 

“Nah.” Kyungsoo shakes his head. “I’m pretty sure they’d very much prefer to see you instead. You do remember how much my mother adored you, and how she wanted to exchange me for you.” The chortle that wafts off into the silence is wistful, and Kyungsoo regrets letting it slip past his lips. 

Thankfully, Chanyeol is seemingly unaffected. Her smile is still on her face, and her eyes are still slightly narrowed. But Kyungsoo knows. He knows that she is affected, _has been_ affected since the go-ahead was given to them to leave Nagasaki for Seoul, for Sokcho. Chanyeol didn’t show it, but Kyungsoo _knows_. He’s seen it so clearly on her face when she must have thought that she’d hidden it under layers and layers of forced happiness and delight. And Chanyeol seemed to know that Kyungsoo knew, for sometimes she would just _let go_ and sink into his arms, wrapping her arms around his sturdy body, depositing her head onto his chest. Kyungsoo relished such times, but knew that this close contact between them came at a price that both of them can never repay in this lifetime. 

“Mm.” Chanyeol just hums non-committedly, turning back to look out at the view. Even though he’s standing a feet away and slightly behind her, Kyungsoo can clearly feel an emotion emanating from her. It’s an emotion that he hasn’t felt from her for a long time; the last time being two years ago. When Seungsoo passed away. 

Sidling up to her, Kyungsoo exchanges the hand in Chanyeol’s to his other, enabling his free arm to circle around her waist, hand slipping under her jacket to press his fingers lightly onto her side. It is a pinch—though, done with a whole hand instead of two fingers—and may seem uncomfortable for Chanyeol, but it isn’t. Kyungsoo knows from Chanyeol’s shy confessions that the move is, instead, calming. It reminds her of Kyungsoo’s presence, reminds her that she still has him, that he is still by her side even after all these years. Most importantly, as Chanyeol once mentioned with the most seriousness Kyungsoo had ever seen on her, the move is an anchor. It keeps her afloat in her stormy sea of negative, conflicting emotions, as they try to sink her boat and drown her. The whole-handed pinch from Kyungsoo is everything _but_ uncomfortable and painful. It’s a lifesaver, her salvation.

“You should remove the twine first,” Kyungsoo murmurs, the hand in hers tightening its grip as he lightly jerks his chin towards the bouquet in her unoccupied hand. The six white roses gently sway in the breeze. 

Chanyeol’s hand squeezes back, her head turning to look at Kyungsoo. The smile on her face is sorrowful, no doubt influenced by her emotion. Kyungsoo hates to see her smiling when he knows she wants to do anything _but_ smile. It hurts him, but Kyungsoo keeps his comments to himself because pointing it out would only hurt her more. And Kyungsoo doesn’t want that; they’ve both hurt enough. Though, when will the hurt ever stop coursing through their veins? 

“You should remove your hand first, Soo.” 

Kyungsoo looks down at their intertwined hands. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” Chanyeol snickers. “Oh.” 

Embarrassed, Kyungsoo reluctantly releases Chanyeol’s hand and watches as she unties the twine from the stalks of the roses. She drapes it over the railing, but lets out a squeak when the breeze lifts it off and away from the railing. It spirals down towards the green. 

“It’s alright. We have no more use for the twine after this anyway.” Kyungsoo applies more pressure into Chanyeol’s side, knowing fully well that she’s reproaching herself on the inside. It’s not a very vicious habit, but still vicious all the same and Kyungsoo very much wants to get rid of it. He’s tried, failed, and has come to accept that it’s part of who Chanyeol is. He might not be able to remove it, but he can accompany her through it, can help her to get out of it. It’s tenacious, but Kyungsoo is definitely _more_ tenacious. 

Chanyeol nods, separating one rose from the six, before handing the remaining five to Kyungsoo. He observes how her eyes flutter shut, lashes trembling against her eyebags, and how her lips part to murmur softly words she wants to say. 

Her father went first, and Kyungsoo listened to Chanyeol speak of how she misses him. Misses his loud and peppy laughter that was unsuitable for a man his age. Misses his large and calloused hands enveloping hers. Absolutely missing that handsome, fond smile whenever he looked at his wife, her mother. It took a little while, for Chanyeol paused, probably collecting her thoughts, before continuing, and when she had finished, Chanyeol plucked all of the petals of the rose, laid them in her palm, and watched as the breeze came and spirited them away. She didn’t follow them, kept her eyes on the bald stalk instead as she released it, dropping it to join its fellow green counterpart at the foot of Seoraksan. Then, she’d select another rose for the next family member she’d talk to. 

Kyungsoo didn’t dare to mention her red-rimmed eyes, trembling lips, and shaking voice. 

And it went on. One white rose for Chanyeol’s mother, accompanied by Chanyeol’s heartfelt words for her, and one for Yura as well. Kyungsoo had looked away when Chanyeol was speaking to her sister, because he knew how close they were, and hadn’t wanted to intrude on their one-way conversation. But yet, somehow he knew. Kyungsoo knew the exact moment when Chanyeol inhaled and choked on the air, before bursting into tears and incoherently spluttered the rest of what she wanted to tell her sister. He applied more pressure into Chanyeol’s side, hoping that it would calm her down.

Chanyeol’s barely audible _I love you and miss you very much eonnie_ ends her part of the supposed respect ritual both of them came up with. Chanyeol looks up from where she had been following the stalk, and from the tiny smile she gives, Kyungsoo is saddened to know that the hand on Chanyeol’s waist wasn’t much help. It hasn’t effectively provided the calm and assurance she needed during her part. It’s regretful, and Kyungsoo feels guilty. 

He would have succumbed to the growing guilt within him, if not for Chanyeol saying, “It’s your turn, Soo.”, disrupting his pity party for one. He dutifully hands over the remaining three stalks of white roses to Chanyeol, accepting the lone flower that Chanyeol gently places in his hand. The moment he clutches it, lightly and carefully, Kyungsoo feels the weight of it. It’s physically light, since it is a flower, but psychologically, it’s heavy. He feels the weight of its meaning, of how white roses are for reverent occasions, a fitting way to honour a loved one. It is the perfect flower for Kyungsoo and Chanyeol to pay their respects to their dead families with, to convey their undying respect and love for them, and to also tell them that they will be okay, and that after this, they will start anew. They will feel hopeful for their future, a future where neither of them will be apart from the other. 

It also helps that, coincidentally, both their parents’ wedding bouquets comprised of white roses and _only_ white roses. It’s fate, and Kyungsoo couldn’t be more surprised and delighted when Chanyeol shared this information because _oh god, we are most definitely fated to be then_.

Removing his hand from Chanyeol’s waist, Kyungsoo mentally laments at the loss of contact with his girlfriend but soon relaxes when Chanyeol moves behind him and wraps her arms around his waist. She hooks her chin onto his shoulder, leaning her head against his. Chanyeol’s hair tickles. 

Ignoring the tingly feeling spreading from the side of the face where Chanyeol has smushed her cheek against his, Kyungsoo parts his lips and inhales. When he exhales, he finally begins the heartfelt respects he should have paid to his parents eight, and brother two years ago. But, better late than never.

 

\---

 

Despite informing their families of their wish to start anew and step into a hopeful future with each other, Kyungsoo sees that Chanyeol isn’t ready. 

And it isn’t because of the deaths of their families, for Kyungsoo truly believes Chanyeol when she said that she’d accepted the deaths of her parents, and of his family, as well as of Yura and of Seungsoo— _“it’s been years, I’ve really gotten over them because I don’t feel pained every time I think about any of them anymore.”_

It also isn’t because of Chanyeol being scared that Kyungsoo will abandon her one day, therefore breaking the promise of building a new and hopeful future side by side. It will never happen, for Kyungsoo lets Chanyeol know, through a serious tone, _every single day_ that he loves her, and _will_ love her for the rest of his life. Her consistent reply of _I know Soo_ isn’t patronising at all, and Kyungsoo is glad that she understands his heart. 

Chanyeol’s unreadiness, however, stems from a simple worry. It’s so utterly simple, so shamelessly trivial, and happens so often in their daily lives that Kyungsoo would have dismissed it easily if not for the tears streaming down Chanyeol’s face as her body, wracked with the same emotion as before, shakes vehemently and even causes Kyungsoo’s to shake as well when he puts his arms around her. It is also the way Chanyeol’s eyes are scrunched so tightly shut, the way her lips are so tightly pressed together that they’re turning white, and the way she isn’t responding to anything Kyungsoo is saying to her that he doesn’t immediately file it away. Chanyeol broke down— _is_ breaking down—right next to him and for the first time, Kyungsoo is at a loss of what to do. He doesn’t know how to comfort her, how to calm her, how to reassure her. Because Chanyeol’s reason for her unreadiness is something that Kyungsoo hadn’t anticipated. 

She's afraid of forgetting. Chanyeol is afraid of _forgetting about their families_.

“I– I just don’t want to forget them, Soo,” Chanyeol blubs. “I really, really, _really_ don’t wish to forget them.” 

Her hiccups, courtesy of her bawling and sobbing and non-stop crying, causes Chanyeol’s body to jerk, which in turn makes Kyungsoo’s jerk too for, despite the size difference between them, Kyungsoo has Chanyeol tucked into his side. An arm is firmly wound around her shoulders, hand gripping her upper arm, while the other is gently caressing the side of her face that is not resting against his chest. Kyungsoo has given up on wiping Chanyeol’s tears off her face with his fingers or tissue, heeding his girlfriend’s suggestion to keep her jeans dry while saving the environment by collecting her never-ending tears with a plastic bag instead. Said plastic bag is held by Chanyeol herself, right below her chin. 

If anyone were to trek by the path that leads to a closer view of Ulsanbawi, they’d see this pair sitting on a boulder; the guy holding the girl close, and the girl holding a plastic bag right beneath her face. And in the tranquility at the peak of Seoraksan, the girl’s sniffles and soft sobs can be heard. It’s a peculiar sight, and fortunately, no one has passed them by as of yet. Or, to the best of Kyungsoo’s knowledge anyway. 

“You won’t forget them, Yeol. You know you won’t,” Kyungsoo says for the umpteenth time. He inhales through his nose, and winces when he realises that snot has formed in his nostrils. _Shit._ Kyungsoo hopes that it’s because of the constant breeze that’s been blowing at them ever since they began their hike up the mountain, and not because of Chanyeol’s state affecting him. Though, if Kyungsoo’s (brutally) honest with himself, he’d admit that it’s the latter. It’s hard to not be affected. It’s practically _impossible_ for Kyungsoo to not get caught up in the storm of Chanyeol’s insecurities and worries that seemed to have been bottled up for years. Chanyeol has been hiding them so fucking well, that even Kyungsoo, who prides himself on being able to read his best friend and girlfriend like an open book, never once discovered them. Or, perhaps, Chanyeol herself hadn’t known that they were even within her. Because there’s no way, no fucking way Chanyeol can keep these ugly and frightening matters within her without them affecting her. 

They must have manifested in Chanyeol without her knowledge, then. And with the trigger of Kyungsoo and Chanyeol deciding to pay their belated respects to their families, these concerns and worries that dwell in the darkness finally decided to make their appearance. 

Kyungsoo is glad, though. He's relieved that Chanyeol is letting out all her worries and insecurities right now, because he's afraid that if she had kept them within her any longer than she already shouldn’t have, she might just go insane. One’s darkness is a terrible accompaniment to stress, and it's especially worrisome for Jaeger pilots. You tell yourself that you're not worried about dying out there on the battlefield, but there's no way to know, no way to foresee what happens after the fight. You either survive, or die. 

It would have been disastrous for Chanyeol, and for Kyungsoo as well, should she had continued to keep the darkness within her, even if she genuinely didn't know that it existed. But, thankfully, it's out in the open now. Spilt out into the cold air of Seoraksan for Kyungsoo to know and provide reassurance for. 

“I– I don't want to step into our future only to forget about them later because they're my precious family and your precious family and I just really love them so, so much,” Chanyeol whispers, the volume of it barely audible but Kyungsoo hears it, and he's listened to it. He knows that Chanyeol isn't done, so he just continues to stroke his thumb on the apple of Chanyeol’s cheek, and hums a soft sound of acknowledgment. 

The short breathy bout of laughter that comes from Chanyeol surprises Kyungsoo, and his body betrays him with a reflexive _huh?_ , head unconsciously dipping down to peer at the girl nestled in his side. Chanyeol’s tear-streaked face greets him, but the small smile on her face ignites little bubbles of joy in his stomach. At least she's stopped crying. 

“Your hum reminded me of the sound that I always hear each time my Mario dies in the game,” Chanyeol explains, voice all breathy and soft but the silence of their location enables Kyungsoo to hear her loud and clear. “You sounded so cute, I had to laugh.” 

Kyungsoo smiles. “Glad to have made you laugh.” He gently knocks his forehead against hers when Chanyeol giggles.

Silence descends on them not long later, and as Kyungsoo tucks Chanyeol back into his arms once more, murmurs a _comfortable?_ to which Chanyeol nods and nuzzles her face into his chest. Kyungsoo swears that he hears Chanyeol _purring_. 

After staring at the top of Chanyeol’s head for a couple of seconds in disbelief (because Kyungsoo isn’t sure if Chanyeol _did_ purr or was it a figment of his ~~fantasy~~ imagination), and feeling a little like a creep for doing so, Kyungsoo tears his eyes away from her. He looks out at the view instead and pretends to be admiring the green and the blue and the white when Kyungsoo’s actually peering down at the brown of his girlfriend’s hair. If Chanyeol feels the weight of Kyungsoo’s gaze, she doesn’t mention it. 

A rustle of plastic brings Kyungsoo back to the present, and he realises that he must have either zoned out or dozed off with his eyes open (it wouldn’t be the first time this happened, as strange as it sounds). Scrunching up his face to crack the stiffness of it, Kyungsoo unconsciously lets out a yawn, and the weight on his chest suddenly disappears. 

“Do you want to stand up and stretch?” A voice that sounds a lot like Chanyeol when she just wakes up travels to Kyungsoo’s ears, and the familiarity of it immediately forms a fond smile on his face. 

Opening his eyes, Kyungsoo is greeted by the sight of a sleepy-looking Chanyeol, whose smile is exactly like the ones on her face when Kyungsoo wakes her up every morning and she’d all but whine and ask for _five more minutes, Soo_. It was adorable back in the dome, and it’s still so adorable even in Sokcho. Kyungsoo feels so attacked (and whipped). 

“Yeah,” Kyungsoo says, and Chanyeol removes herself from him. Kyungsoo stands, and stretches his limbs, rotates his hips, and even kicks his legs for good measure because numb legs lead to pins and needles and Kyungsoo just _hates_ that feeling which might have been exacerbated by Chanyeol who usually tortures him by excessively prodding his legs. Sometimes, Kyungsoo has a love-hate relationship with his co-pilot slash girlfriend. What a dilemma. 

Chanyeol’s hands guide Kyungsoo back down onto the boulder, where he sits in front of her this time instead of side by side. Judging from the way Chanyeol is playing with his fingers and biting her lips, Kyungsoo knows that she’s gearing herself up to head back to what she was talking about before. So, he waits. There’s no point jumping back in when Chanyeol herself isn’t ready, and the consequences of such recklessness could backfire instead. 

“Soo?” 

Mm, looks like she’s ready. “Yes, Yeol?”

“I know it’s really dumb of me to think like this but I just need someone– need you to tell me that I won’t forget them. That the new memories that I’ll make in the future will not overwrite the ones I made with them. That won’t happen, right?”

The helplessness in Chanyeol’s tone of voice portrays a different emotion from the eager expression on her face. And for Kyungsoo who’s been watching her, it’s both confusing and heart-wrenching. Confusing in that Kyungsoo doesn’t know which to trust—her voice, or her countenance—in order to know of her genuine emotion, and heart-wrenching because despite the eagerness written on her face, he had caught a glimpse of sorrow in her big, glistening eyes. Fortunately, Chanyeol isn’t tearing up, and that in itself is an improvement. 

Kyungsoo’s mind whirs as it tries to come up with an answer that will not disappoint Chanyeol, and at the same time _not_ provide empty promises. Kyungsoo has experienced first-handedly how devastating broken promises are; Seungsoo’s death being one of them. So he doesn’t wish this to befall upon Chanyeol, upon the girl he’d swore to protect for life. Kyungsoo tries to tamp down the carefulness in his voice as he answers, “You will not forget them, Chanyeol. I have faith that you won’t, not when you love them all so much.”

The way Chanyeol’s eyes brighten up ignites the bubbles in Kyungsoo’s stomach once more, and he can’t help but smile, with the smile growing wider when Chanyeol starts to smile as well. He glances down at their hands, and slips his fingers between hers without preamble, without hesitation, without the carefulness that he had to hide before. Holding Chanyeol’s hands comes easily to Kyungsoo now, and it’s especially so when he knows that she needs it, needs this physical reassurance.

Chanyeol seems to relish at how natural and smooth Kyungsoo was when holding her hands, the widening smile as proof of that. It can also be heard in her voice. “I suppose I won’t, since I haven’t forgotten Yura and my parents even though they’ve been gone for eight years now. And in the eight years I’ve made so many memories with everyone back in the dome, and not once did I fail to recall the ones I had with my family so I suppose… I won’t forget them even as I welcome a new future…?” 

The question catches Kyungsoo off guard, but he quickly nods and says what his mind has already prepared as an answer beforehand; an answer that will satisfy Chanyeol yet not give her any promises. “You won’t, because I will help you. I will help you to remember as well, so when you can’t seem to recall a certain memory, I hope that I will be able to recall it for you.” Kyungsoo then smiles. “Of course, I would need to _know_ that memory in order to remember it for you.” 

A loud _ugh_ resounds in the silence of Seoraksan a second later, for Kyungsoo wasn’t expecting Chanyeol to launch herself at him, and his lack of preparation for Chanyeol’s surprise attack causes both of them to fall back and _almost tumble off the mountain_. Amidst his ragged breaths and gulps of oxygen because Chanyeol has squashed the air out of him, Kyungsoo attempts to roll her off of him, but realises that he can’t. Chanyeol seems to have wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, face buried in the crook of his neck and _snaps_ , now that Kyungsoo is conscious of Chanyeol’s position, his neck begins to feel ticklish. “C-Chan–”

“I’m a selfish person, Soo.” 

Kyungsoo stops trying to push Chanyeol off of him (he’d actually never put any strength into his hands in the first place). He lets his body go limp, though his arms circle Chanyeol’s waist, hands finding her sides beneath her jacket. Kyungsoo applies a little pressure with his fingers. “Why do you say that, Yeol?”

“Because I want to remember my father, my mother, Yura, Seungsoo, and your parents. Yet, I also want to remember Yixing, Baekhyun, Yifan, Sehun, Jongin, Jongdae, Minseok, and Joonmyeon. And there’s also the maintenance crew and that Zitao from K-Science who secretly gives me Japanese sweets with the files he hands to me.” Chanyeol suddenly stops, and inhales deeply. “And there’s you. There’s still _you_ , Do Kyungsoo, and my memories with you are the most important, most precious to me and I _really don’t want to lose any of them_. But that is a lot of people that I want to remember, that I want to treasure and I don’t think my brain is big enough to squeeze them all in and keep track of everything I’ve done with them without me forgetting some things.” 

When Kyungsoo finally registers what Chanyeol has just blurted out, he’s overwhelmed with the urge to cry. Because, _god_ , that is so Chanyeol. That was Park Chanyeol at her realest and all that she’s said are her genuinely heartfelt worries that only she would worry her beautiful brain about. Nobody would be concerned about losing memories, not when they can be worrying about surviving the next Kaiju fight (for pilots) or when the Jaeger parts they ordered would come in (the engineers and maintenance crews). For Kyungsoo, obviously, he’d rather spend the brain cells and time worrying about Chanyeol instead. 

But if this is what Chanyeol is vexing over, then Kyungsoo wants to worry about it too. He wants to share the burden with her, help her out with it, and dispel it from her mind. And that is what Kyungsoo has been doing. He got to know about it, acknowledged it, and has provided a solution to it. He hopes that it would be enough for Chanyeol. Because this seems to be the most worrisome thing for her, and if he manages to solve it for her, it would definitely put her very much at ease and Chanyeol would be genuinely happy again. 

And Kyungsoo very much wishes that it _would be_ enough for her, because Chanyeol possesses the biggest, kindest heart that he’s ever had the fortune to come across, and he must have saved a nation in his past life or something equally significant to be able to occupy a part of it for the longest time without knowing he did. Chanyeol deserves the best, because she wants the best for others even if it means not getting it for herself, and Kyungsoo hasn’t seen anyone who can compare to her. (Or, perhaps, Kyungsoo is just biased and can’t see anyone else besides Chanyeol. But this is beside the point.) 

Chanyeol deserves the world. And Kyungsoo will give it to her, no matter what it takes. 

Though, Kyungsoo is secretly relieved that Chanyeol is worried about forgetting. If she had told him that she was still hung up over the deaths of their families, he honestly wouldn’t know what to do. _That_ would involve feelings and even after eight and two years respectively, Kyungsoo still isn’t all that comfortable with feelings yet. He has a gut feeling that he would never come to terms with the sorrow that dwells deep within the darkness of his heart because if there’s a death that he can never accept and stop feeling guilty about, it’s Seungsoo’s. The exact sight and sounds would, without fail, rush into his mind each time he steps into Satan Heart’s Conn-Pod and Kyungsoo would relive that fateful day all over again. Yet, while he never chases the rabbit when drifting with Chanyeol, Kyungsoo is certain that she knows. He’s just glad that she never mentions it. 

“To me, Yeol, that’s not selfish. Or if you insist that it is, then I’m selfish, too. Then Baekhyun, Yixing, Jongin, and Sehun, and everyone else would be selfish beings, too.” Kyungsoo tightens his grip around Chanyeol’s waist, fingers applying slightly more pressure against her sides. He feels her cold fingers playing with the baby hairs on his nape, her warm breaths fanning the crook of his neck; Kyungsoo thinks that his neck is confused, goosebumps not knowing if they ought to appear or not. “I’m the same as you. I want to remember my family and yours, and at the same time I want to get to know more people and remember the important ones as well. Like you, I want to remember Baekhyun and Yixing, Jongin and Sehun, Yifan and Jongdae, Minseok, and Marshall Joonmyeon. And that Zitao from K-Science because now I know where the sweets you’ve been giving to me came from.

“And if that isn’t enough, there’s something else I can tell you.” Kyungsoo removes a hand from Chanyeol’s waist, index rubbing at his nostrils because he’s suddenly begun to tear up and _shit_ , he’s not supposed to cry. But Kyungsoo resigns himself to knowing that he would always feel like crying whenever he recalls what Yixing had said to him because it’s just _that sad_. “I think I’m allowed to tell you this. It’s about Yixing and his previous co-pilot.” 

“Lu… Han?”

Kyungsoo nods. “Yeah, Lu Han. When I lost Seungsoo two years ago, Yixing came to the ward and told me about how he lost Lu Han. He provided me with his own experiences of mourning for Lu Han, of how he had spiralled into depression and a slump. He would have been decomissioned if not for his then-Marshall in the Hong Kong Shatterdome insisting on his transfer to Nagasaki after his secret request on Yixing’s behalf for a co-pilot was approved. And that was when Baekhyun came into the picture and we all knew what happened after that.

“The point is, Yeol, that even though Yixing has Baekhyun now, he’s never truly forgotten Lu Han. He admits to dreaming about him sometimes, Lu Han’s name rolling off his tongue when he wakes and Baekhyun’s wistful expression is the first thing that he sees. He also finds himself thinking about him, about what could have become of him, of them if Lu Han hadn’t died. But Yixing wouldn’t change the present for anything, even if he can bring Lu Han back from beneath the waters, because he has Baekhyun now. And Baekhyun knows that Lu Han will never leave Yixing because Lu Han had been a significant part of Yixing, and he accepts that.

“What I’m trying to get across to you is that new memories will not overwrite old ones, especially those that you hold close to your heart. Yixing didn’t forget Lu Han, did he? And I know for sure that I will never forget Seungsoo and my parents, and that you will _never_ forget Yura and your father, and your mother. I will make sure of that.”

Kyungsoo blinks back his tears in the silence that descends upon them, choosing to bring his hand back to Chanyeol’s waist instead of wiping them away. Ah, it wasn’t so bad recalling what Yixing had said to him two years ago in the ward; it was only hard to remember how distraught Yixing had looked whenever he mentioned Lu Han. Kyungsoo can only wonder how Baekhyun feels each time he catches his co-pilot thinking about someone that isn’t him. 

The silence goes on a little too long and Kyungsoo would have thought that Chanyeol had fallen asleep if not for her–

“POOR YIXING!” 

_What. Why is Chanyeol–_ Kyungsoo sits up in a split second, pushing Chanyeol away from his body as he takes in the tears streaming down her face. Sighs, they’re back to square one. “Yeol, I didn’t tell you about Yixing for you to start crying again…” He reaches up to her face and directs her tears away from the corners of her mouth. “What do I do with you, you crybaby.” 

“I– I’m n-not a cry– crybaby!” Chanyeol wails, arms flailing wildly in the air and what do you know—they’re apparently not back at square one after all since this crying Chanyeol behaves differently from the Chanyeol from before. Kyungsoo bites back a smile.

“Alright, alright. Chanyeol is _not_ a crybaby,” Kyungsoo pacifies. He continues to wipe the tears off Chanyeol’s face, the corners of his mouth desperately resisting the urge to be tugged upwards. “She’s just someone who cries easily when she hears a sad story. There, am I correct now?”

The nod and sound of acknowledgment that Chanyeol gives in reply are simply adorable and Kyungsoo’s resistance wears off instantly. His hands cup Chanyeol’s face and he leans in, eyes fluttering shut, corners of his mouth finally rising. Kyungsoo doesn’t register what he has done until he feels arms snaking around his neck and the pressure on his lips increases. He comes to his senses then, eyes flying open and the sight of Chanyeol’s closed eyes _right in front_ of him all but slams the panic button within him, but before he can push himself away or Chanyeol away from him, Chanyeol herself pulls away first. 

“I sensed your panic.” is all that Chanyeol says with a knowing smile as she ruffles Kyungsoo’s hair and gazes at him with flushed cheeks and twinkling eyes. “Also, thank you, thanks for listening to me and providing me with a solution. As for Yixing’s story, I’ll definitely keep my mouth shut and not tell anyone.” She does the zipping motion at her lips.

“But, really, Soo, _thank you_.” And this time, it’s Chanyeol who leans in and close the distance between their lips. Kyungsoo smiles, and feels Chanyeol smiling as well.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not sure if it is, but i'm warning for mild dub-con that's happening in the semi-smut straightaway. (yes, you read that right. jen attempted smut. well, _semi_ -smut anyway.)
> 
> also, yes, jen is a sappy person to update this on soo's birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY BOY <3

Kyungsoo stirs from his slumber when he feels warmer than he thinks he ought to be. He attempts to move his arm, but realises that he can’t. He attempts to bend his legs, but realises that he can’t, either. He attempts to turn to his side, sleepily expecting to not be able to do that as well but, Kyungsoo manages to. Mm, that’s a surprise, though not a big deal. And Kyungsoo would have gone back to sleep, dismissing his failed attempts of moving his arm and bending his legs due to something that his sleep-addled brain can’t think of right now, if it weren’t for the—

_“Soo…”_

—that sounds a lot like it’s being said by Chanyeol. Said in a tone similar to the one that Chanyeol always uses during the massages she coerces Kyungsoo to do for her, where she would let her eyes flutter shut, but parts her lips to let out moans and praises in the high-pitched, pleasured, whiny tone that is disgustingly similar to the ones Kyungsoo hears from the room of the pilots of Ventus Shadow every night. Chanyeol had ignored all of Kyungsoo’s pleas to _stop copying Sehun and Jongin_ and caught his bluffs on not massaging her if she continues to be this… gross (for the lack of a better word from Kyungsoo’s brain). 

But how can Kyungsoo go back to sleep when he’s heard _that_? How can he go back to sleep when the tone _does things_ to him and render his self-control useless and he always has to lock himself in the bathroom to relieve himself while replaying Chanyeol’s voice over and over in his head until he comes spilling over his hand and he finally steps back into their room only to receive a knowing smirk from his girlfriend whom he’s always thought as innocent. Kyungsoo needs to reevaluate his perceptions of people, starting from his girlfriend. 

And Kyungsoo wakes then, eyes opening ever so slowly, the narrow slip of light coming from the bathroom slowly lighting up his vision, as he vehemently prays that Chanyeol isn’t in his bed– 

No such luck. Chanyeol is right next to him.

Kyungsoo has never swore so hard (in his mind), and it’s when he tries to put distance between him and Chanyeol does he discover why he couldn’t move his arm. Chanyeol is sleeping on it, sleeping _soundly_ on it might he add. She isn’t awake, strangely, and Kyungsoo would know if she is for when Chanyeol is truly asleep, her eyes are half-opened. Which is actually pretty creepy but Kyungsoo has gotten used to it; they’re not friends for almost two decades for naught. 

Also, Kyungsoo is unable to scoot away from the sleeping Chanyeol because the mattress of their bunk bed in the Sokcho hostel is small as fuck. At least the dome’s single mattress could possibly fit Chanyeol and him (not that they’ve tried; Kyungsoo keeps rejecting Chanyeol because _reasons_ ) but this mattress is just– just _tiny_. Kyungsoo tilts his head down, wanting to take a look at how Chanyeol managed to squeeze herself next to Kyungsoo, and he knocks his head against hers. See, this shows how _fucking tiny_ the bed is. Holding his breath, Kyungsoo waits to see if Chanyeol will wake. Fortunately, Chanyeol sleeps like the dead most of the time, needing Kyungsoo to wake her up in normal mornings or when the alarm blares during a Kaiju sighting. (Fun fact: did you know that Chanyeol can sleep through the alarm?)

Seeing how Chanyeol doesn’t even so as twitch, Kyungsoo lets out a silent sigh of relief. The relief doesn’t last long though, for reality comes charging back into his head as Kyungsoo stares at the sleeping (and lightly snoring) Chanyeol and he mentally screams in his head: _what the fuck is Chanyeol doing in my bed and how did she make her way down here!?_

Kyungsoo is fairly certain that Chanyeol took the top bunk and fell asleep within seconds of the lullaby she had forced (not really) Kyungsoo to sing, if the loud snore that resounded in the room was any indication. And Chanyeol doesn’t sleepwalk. Or does she? Kyungsoo hadn’t come across any incidents of her doing that though. But clearly, Chanyeol must have sleepwalked her way down or something because she is _definitely_ asleep. Her half-closed eyes are staring straight at Kyungsoo, and Kyungsoo may or may not be a little creeped out by them despite saying that he wouldn’t be. Well, he’s never been this close to Chanyeol when she’s sleeping, so.

He leans away from Chanyeol as far as he can, which is technically approximately half a centimetre because his back just hit the wall and his arm is Chanyeol’s pillow and the mattress is tiny as fuck. Kyungsoo is not coming back to this hostel if he ever returns to Sokcho in the future. Which is probably never. 

And while Kyungsoo proceeds to contemplate the exact reasons why he booked this hostel, he finds the (barely existent) space between him and Chanyeol gradually disappearing and somehow, Chanyeol ends up right in his face. Again. Kyungsoo immediately _stops breathing_. 

“Soo…”

There it is again. The high-pitched, pleasured, whiny tone that Kyungsoo ~~honestly loves~~ despises and he thinks he feels blood suddenly rushing from the north of his body to the south and that can only mean one thing. Kyungsoo flits his eyes downwards instead of lowering his head and _sighs_. Kyungsoo needs to go to the bathroom. Immediately. 

But it seems that the world is against him tonight for not only has Chanyeol sidled up to him, she’s beginning to snake a hand up his blanket-covered chest, fingers curling around a side of his neck. Her face is unbelievably _close_ , their noses bumping, and Kyungsoo’s lips are tingling because Chanyeol’s breaths upon his lips are both warm and electrifying. An uncontrollable shiver shoots down Kyungsoo’s spine. He feels more blood heading south. _Shit._

“Soo…” Chanyeol moans again while her fingers skate up the back of Kyungsoo’s head, fingers weaving into his hair. Her chest is flushed against his, and shock floods Kyungsoo when he feels two buds prodding above his nipples because _oh my god_. Chanyeol isn’t wearing a bra. The thought of it tempts Kyungsoo to dart his eyes downwards for visual verification even though he knows that Chanyeol’s hardening nipples are indeed pressing against his chest and despite suspecting that his girlfriend possesses a decently-sized pair of breasts, the _physical_ feeling of them on his chest is oddly pleasant. But Kyungsoo doesn’t have time to fantasise how Chanyeol’s chest look like for suddenly his hair is being pulled, and Kyungsoo finds his lips pressing against his girlfriend’s. 

If Kyungsoo says that he’s not in the least turned on by the series of _events_ , he’s _fucking lying_. 

The initial shock, albeit sudden but overall pleasant, wears off in a few seconds, and Kyungsoo finds himself reciprocating. Moaning Chanyeol’s name softly, he shuts his eyes and lets his other senses take control. Kyungsoo slides his only free hand across Chanyeol’s waist, feeling the curve under his fingers. He slips his thumb under the shirt—Kyungsoo’s, from the previous night—that Chanyeol’s wearing, and when Kyungsoo finds her hipbone, he begins to rub circles at the same spot. It must be a sensitive spot for Chanyeol, and Kyungsoo hears and feel a breathy moan reverberating in his mouth. Chanyeol’s moan is downright filthy. Kyungsoo has no idea his girlfriend could sound like this. It’s addictive, and he wants to hear more, more, _more_. Thin walls and hostel neighbours be damned.

But to do that, Kyungsoo knows that he’d have to lose himself, to surrender his conservations to the flame of lust within him and let it burn them to ashes. The flame only grows stronger, never weaker as Kyungsoo swallows more and more of Chanyeol’s moans and breaths like a starved man. And, _fuck_ , they are only kissing, with no tongues involved. If Chanyeol sounds like _this_ with opened-mouth kisses, Kyungsoo doesn’t want to hear how she sounds like if they take it a step further. Wait, scratch that. Kyungsoo _does_ want to hear. The flame is so, so strong now. 

His hand moves on from her hipbone, fingertips skimming lightly over Chanyeol’s skin before settling at the small of her back. Then, Kyungsoo _pushes_. His hipbones knock against Chanyeol’s and Kyungsoo breathes out a short grunt of pain that disappears in the next second when Kyungsoo keens upon feeling pressure on his crotch. It feels so, so amazing and Kyungsoo absolutely revels in it. He pushes at Chanyeol’s back again, wanting to apply more pressure from Chanyeol’s end in order to feel that delicious friction against his hard-on but Kyungsoo lets out yet another sharp grunt of pain when he feels something pressing rather painfully into his back. A quick opening of an eye to check causes a particularly loud groan to slip past Kyungsoo’s lips and reverberate in Chanyeol’s mouth, for Chanyeol somehow managed to drape a leg over his waist and the bareness of his girlfriend’s mile-long gam sends a jolt of arousal within Kyungsoo.

Losing more of his thoughts and control, Kyungsoo pushes his hips forward, desperate to seek pressure for his hard cock, and pleasure for himself. His blind attempt somehow manages to get his cock right at Chanyeol’s groin, and Kyungsoo feels warmth on his cock. It feels _heavenly_ and Kyungsoo grinds against it, throaty growls rising and spilling unabashedly into Chanyeol’s mouth as they continue to kiss sloppily, hungrily. Chanyeol moans, when Kyungsoo pushes his hips forward again and his cock thrusts into her folds. Although both he and Chanyeol are still clothed, Kyungsoo feels wetness gathering on the front of his sweatpants and he doesn’t know if the wetness comes from him or Chanyeol, or both. The thought of Chanyeol getting wet pushes Kyungsoo to the brink, and he begins to actively grind his cock against Chanyeol’s groin, the friction utterly delicious and heavenly and Kyungsoo could most possibly come right–

 _No._

As though a gust of wind had appeared, the flame suddenly weakens, and almost all of Kyungsoo’s movements abruptly slow down. In a normal (awake) situation, Kyungsoo thinks that Chanyeol would be whining at the lack of action. Yet, instead of whines, all he hears are Chanyeol’s moans gradually muting, and this is when Kyungsoo’s lust wanes as something belatedly dawns on him. That Kyungsoo must not _completely_ let go. He cannot give _all_ of himself over to the flame of lust and lose all control over his thoughts and actions because Chanyeol is _asleep_. She’s not awake, which means that her current (probably sleepwalking) actions may not be what she would have wanted or done if she was. There is no consent from her, and if Kyungsoo continues with his ministrations, he’d be very well committing assault. And Kyungsoo can’t, _won’t_ do that. He will _not_ risk fucking up their relationship just to get a taste of Chanyeol, to fuck her and feel her writhing under–

“Shit,” He curses, eyes flying open as he pulls away from Chanyeol’s lips. Kyungsoo’s neck strains as he leans away from Chanyeol as far as he can because Chanyeol is, once again, following him, her lips chasing after his. The back of his head hits the wall, and Kyungsoo softly curses when Chanyeol catches up, warm and electrifying lips closing in. Down south, while Kyungsoo has stopped all his movement and has removed his hand from Chanyeol’s waist after lifting her leg off his own, Chanyeol is still pressing her crotch against his softening cock. Kyungsoo quickly backs away, his buttocks bumping into the wall. He bends his legs as much as he can in the minimal space between him and Chanyeol to prevent her from advancing towards him; Kyungsoo reckons that he can hold off his arousal when kissed, but he’s fairly certain that he will immediately give in to anything that happens to his cock. So, no, he’s not taking the chance. He doesn’t want to be engulfed by lust again, to be lulled into the false sense of security and consent that comes in the forms of Chanyeol’s eagerness and breathy moans. 

So Kyungsoo does the thing that he ought to have done right at the start when he first discovered Chanyeol in his bed. He wakes her. “Yeol,” Kyungsoo says, volume way above a whisper because Chanyeol sleeps like the dead. He grasps her shoulders and shakes. “Chanyeol, wake up.” 

Of course, such weak efforts are futile. Kyungsoo decides to kick the notch _all_ the way up. Yelling is not an option, unless Kyungsoo wants the hostel owner to kick them out in the middle of the night. So Kyungsoo resorts to the next best thing. Shaking. _Vehement_ shaking. “Yeol, wake up,” Kyungsoo says again as he shakes Chanyeol by the shoulders _hard_. The bunk bed creaks with every shake and Kyungsoo wills himself to not let his thoughts run wild because _now is not the time_. He focuses on shaking Chanyeol to consciousness. “Wake up, sleepyhead.” 

After some seriously hard shakes of Chanyeol’s shoulders, Chanyeol begins to wake. Kyungsoo slowly tones down the intensity of his shaking as he watches Chanyeol (literally) come to life. A fond smile forms on his face and stays throughout the entire process of Chanyeol regaining consciousness. 

“... Soo?” 

Kyungsoo chuckles. “Hey, sorry to wake you up.”

“Why did you wake me up? And why are you–” Chanyeol’s eyes suddenly flood with realisation and her head looks down and up, down and up. “Why am I here?! Why am I in your bed?! _Oh my god did we–_ ”

“We didn’t.” Kyungsoo is surprisingly calm. He moves Chanyeol’s head off his (dead) arm before cupping her face with both his hands. Thumbs start to gently caress her cheeks. “We didn’t do… that. But I must apologise to you, Chanyeol.” The fond smile on Kyungsoo’s face vanishes. “I– There is no excuse for what I have done to you while you were unconscious and I understand if you would never forgive me. I am sorry, Chanyeol.” 

“Does this mean… that we…”

“We didn’t,” Kyungsoo firmly reiterates. He cradles Chanyeol’s face a little tighter, but still gentle all the same. His tone softens and turns apologetic. “We didn’t have sex. We only—or rather _I_ kissed you, pressed my chest against yours, pushed your abdomen towards mine, and… um, grinded my erection against your groin.” Guilt and embarrassment finally find Kyungsoo, and he removes his hands from Chanyeol’s face immediately as though they have been scalded hot water, or by the fury that’s probably burning under Chanyeol’s skin right now. Kyungsoo doesn’t dare to look up, tilting his head as downwards as possible, jamming his chin into his chest while keeping his eyes trained on his clasped hands that he’s pressing against his chest. There is no way he’s going to look at or touch Chanyeol’s body, not when Chanyeol is definitely furious at what he has done. She must think that he’s a monster, doing such things to her without her consent and while she’s asleep. He’s become the pervert that Chanyeol has always teased him of becoming. Kyungsoo feels fucking ashamed.

The room lapses into silence. Kyungsoo is uncomfortable under Chanyeol’s gaze, confused as to why the gaze isn’t searing but more of searching and a little confusing itself. It’s as though Chanyeol is pondering. But why? Why would she be–

“ _Oh._ ” Chanyeol’s soft, little gasp resounds in the pin-drop silence and it takes all of Kyungsoo’s willpower to not snap his head up to find out why Chanyeol sounds like she’s reached an epiphany of some sort. But Kyungsoo finds out exactly why when Chanyeol softly says, “Shit, I was having a wet dream of you again.”

Kyungsoo has never snapped his head up so fast in his life. With eyes blowing impossibly wide and round, he breathes, “What? Wet… dream?” Kyungsoo dares not believe it. His girlfriend had a wet dream of him. And not just this once, if her ‘again’ indicates that tonight isn’t the first time it’s happened. Holy fuck. Kyungsoo needs to lie down– oh wait, he already is. Scratch that. Kyungsoo needs to reevaluate his perceptions of people. Chanyeol is now irrefutably at the top of his list because _holy shit Yeol had wet dreams of… me!?_

“W-When and why d-do you have them?” Kyungsoo manages to summon enough courage to pry. 

The room is slightly lit up by the minimal light streaming in from the bathroom, but it’s still pretty dark. Yet, Kyungsoo can clearly make out how red Chanyeol’s face is and how she’s biting on her lower lip; clear signs of nervousness. Kyungsoo wishes he could alleviate some of it for her, but he really doesn’t dare and can’t bring himself to touch her. Damn, why did he have to go and lose control, _ugh_.

“When… uh. It normally happens when I…” Chanyeol starts to say while shyly peering up at Kyungsoo. It’s adorable, but Kyungsoo makes sure to keep his hands and comments to himself. He doesn’t need to come off as a pervert any more than he already has become. So Kyungsoo just _looks_ at Chanyeol as she stammers and tries to speak while being really nervous. “It happens when I fall asleep while thinking of you...” And Chanyeol mumbles and Kyungsoo can’t hear what she says. Then, she squeaks and curls into herself.

Absentmindedly noticing how Chanyeol is resting her head on his bent knees in order to be able to bring her legs up to her chest (because once again, the hostel bed is tiny as fuck) and curl herself into a ball, Kyungsoo finds himself replaying her words over and over in his head. Wet dreams. Normally happen. Fall asleep while thinking of him. Blood rushes north this time, filling his face and Kyungsoo feels really hot. He tilts his head upwards, eyes shifting from part of the wall to another but Kyungsoo technically isn’t seeing anything. He’s too preoccupied with his thoughts. 

It takes some involuntary movement of his limbs to get Kyungsoo out, and he returns to reality to find Chanyeol in his arms with round, soft eyes looking at him. Then, Chanyeol tilts her head up slightly to press her lips against Kyungsoo’s. It’s chaste and sweet and innocent, nothing like the ones they’ve exchanged moments before, and Kyungsoo definitely prefers this one; it’s like their relationship, simple yet fulfilling. 

“I sensed concern and knew that you were beating yourself up on the inside again,” Chanyeol answers even though Kyungsoo didn’t voice out the silent question. It’s amazing how Chanyeol can read him like an open book, and Kyungsoo is always grateful for this ability of hers since he’s not a talkative person by nature, and wouldn’t take the initiative to verbalise anything on his mind if he deems it not worth opening his mouth for. Chanyeol is amazing. “So I knew I had to do something.”

“Thanks.” Kyungsoo allows himself to smile a little.

Chanyeol hums in response. “Don’t take to heart what has happened tonight. Because it’s not your fault. I was the one who probably sleepwalked and ended up in your bed and had a wet dream.” She beams up at Kyungsoo. “So stop beating yourself up over your lack of control, alright? In fact,” The smile turns into a smirk. “I’m glad to know that you _can_ lose control when I’m in bed with you. Makes things easier next time.” 

Kyungsoo pretends to not have heard what Chanyeol has said towards the end, and promptly tells her to go to sleep. She pouts, and accuses of Kyungsoo _pretending to be an angel when you’re actually a devil_ and Kyungsoo shuts her up by kissing her. He keeps his lips pressed together when Chanyeol’s tongue comes sliding by, sniggering when Chanyeol finally pulls away with a loud scoff and buries her face into Kyungsoo’s shoulders. Seconds later, she’s snoring. 

“I think,” Kyungsoo whispers into the top of his girlfriend’s head, arms tightening slightly around her and he pulls her closer to him. Chanyeol unconsciously whimpers, face nuzzling against his Kyungsoo’s shoulders. Kyungsoo chuckles. “You’re the one pretending to be an angel when you’re actually a devil.” And Kyungsoo plants a light kiss on Chanyeol’s head before resting his cheek on it. Soon, he’s snoring. 

 

\---

 

“Baekhyun is asking when we’re returning to Nagasaki.”

“He doesn’t know?” 

“I guess not? And, I don’t know if I should jokingly reply _never_ with a lot of _r_ s and a smirking emoji.”

Kyungsoo laughs. “You could. That’ll give him a good scare for a couple of hours until he finally pesters the answer out of Joonmyeon and we’d receive a slew of angry texts followed by Yixing’s _please forgive this idiot of mine_.” He leans towards Chanyeol and darts his eyes to her phone screen. Baekhyun’s text of _when are you coming backkkkkk I don’t want to fight Kaiju for you guys anymore!!_ stares right back at him. Ranger Byun’s ability to teamwork is… debatable. But that dude delivers when he has to, so Kyungsoo can’t really complain about him. 

“His text _is_ rather obnoxious, huh,” Chanyeol hums, smiling when Kyungsoo nods in agreement. He lifts the straw to her mouth and she sips at their shared cup of iced coffee, mouths _thank you_ to Kyungsoo, before returning to the text message at hand. “I should just tease him.” 

“Go for it.” Kyungsoo urges, as he pops the straw into his mouth and sips. He takes in the gleeful smirk on Chanyeol’s face and it’s only when he feels a slight wetness on his knuckles does he realise that he had caressed her cheek unconsciously. Chanyeol continues to pepper kisses on Kyungsoo’s knuckles until he pulls away, a furious flush in his cheeks. “Sheesh, stop that.”

“I don’t want to,” Chanyeol sing-songs, a hand reaching out to Kyungsoo’s which Kyungsoo has placed it behind his back. She reaches for the other, which Kyungsoo quickly hides behind his back, too. Chanyeol whines, “Soo! Give it back.” 

Kyungsoo cocks a brow. “Excuse me? Give what back?” 

“Your hand!” Chanyeol exclaims, putting down her phone onto the table, and now both her hands are pulling at one of Kyungsoo’s upper arms. Despite her lanky figure, Chanyeol is actually pretty strong, since she has been working out alongside him in order to maintain the physique needed to be a Jaeger pilot, but Kyungsoo is stronger. And smarter. He laces his hands together, locks them behind his back. Let’s see how Chanyeol is going to get his hand out. “Give your hand back to me! Now!”

Kyungsoo laughs in disbelief and amusement. “What? Since when was _my_ hand _yours_?” He watches Chanyeol continue to tug at his arm, her efforts futile because Kyungsoo isn’t going to relent. Not this easily, anyway. He suppresses a smirk, and frowns instead. “And stop bothering to try, you’re never going to overcome my strength, Yeol.”

“I can!” Chanyeol huffs, hands still wrapped around Kyungsoo’s upper arm and she continues to pull. Her torso is leaning away from Kyungsoo’s, face scrunched up in concentration and focus. “I can, I can, I _can_! I know I can do it, so stop raining on my parade, Soo!” Chanyeol chants, and Kyungsoo can’t help but chuckle when he sees how red her face is becoming. Her arms are straining with effort, just as Kyungsoo’s are because Chanyeol’s strength is, frankly, no joke.

Seeing how his girlfriend is working so hard for a reason he doesn’t know, Kyungsoo thinks Chanyeol deserves an A-star for effort and determination, and how cute she looks while trying. He takes his eyes off her for a moment, lifting his head to look at the counter of the beverage joint that they’ve decided to rest in for the break in the journey back to Seoul. They had almost missed the bus, partly because Kyungsoo didn’t hear his alarm and partly because a sleepy Chanyeol had refused to let go of Kyungsoo. They barely made it, and all but collapsed in their seats until now. 

Kyungsoo spies a selection of cakes at the counter, and wonders if Chanyeol will take up a bribe. Only one way to find out. “Yeol, look, there are cakes–”

“Bribing me is useless!”

Well, at least Kyungsoo tried. “Fine.” He slumps back into his chair and turns to Chanyeol who’s taking a break and massaging her arms. Her face is grumpy-looking, like that grumpy cat photograph that Jongin constantly sends in their group chat, causing Jongdae to identify it as Sehun and from then on Jongin has been using it to tease his boyfriend. It’s endearing, Chanyeol’s expression—not that Sehun-looking cat. “But why do you want my hand?”

“So that I can hold it.”

The way Chanyeol just says that so straightforwardly, without hesitation and without batting an eyelid causes Kyungsoo’s heart to swell. Kyungsoo shouldn’t have doubted her motives, shouldn’t have felt that teeny weeny bit of embarrassment when Chanyeol was peppering kisses on his hand. He should have known that Chanyeol’s reason, or reasons, for doing what she did would be simple, simple, simple. And despite what he has gone through with her these past two days, of how she’s actually not _that_ naive and innocent as Kyungsoo had thought her to be, Chanyeol is, deep deep down, still a girl and her true nature of being sweet and caring is who she genuinely is. 

And what is Kyungsoo to do when Chanyeol puts it across like that. 

“Here,” He softly says, unclasping his hands and slowly raising both of them towards the table. Having locked his hands in a fixed position for an extended period of time, his joints and muscles are rather stiff and it actually hurts to move them. The pain shows on his face.

“You’re an idiot,” Chanyeol gently chides, her tone like a mother scolding her child. She reaches for Kyungsoo’s hands, fingers kneading into palms, wrists, and the rest of Kyungsoo’s arms as Kyungsoo relaxes into his girlfriend’s touch. “You take your jokes a little too far sometimes, y’know. And that is how you get yourself hurt, tsk.” She lightly slaps one of his upper arm, but immediately pats it to show that she hadn’t meant to. 

“You know I’m not the joking type.” Kyungsoo shrugs. He rotates a wrist, and picks up Chanyeol’s phone when it vibrates. Unlocking it, a text message from Baekhyun appears. “God, this guy is so impatient,” Kyungsoo sniggers and he brings the screen up to Chanyeol’s eyes when she tilts her head in confusion. “He wants to know when we’re heading back again. And, babe, I think you should really, _really_ tease him. Like, a whole lot.” Kyungsoo slots the phone into Chanyeol’s hands, and pats them gently. “Do the best you can, baby girl. Baekhyun deserves no mercy.”

The grin that spreads across Chanyeol’s face is downright devious and, what do you know, Kyungsoo is seeing another facet of Chanyeol that he hardly sees back in the dome. He decides that he likes it. He slaps one smirk onto his face, too. 

“I will. On account that you called me–” Chanyeol giggles, pink beginning to dust on her cheeks (and Kyungsoo swoons a little). “–babe and–” She giggles again, the pink on her cheeks turn a shade darker (and Kyungsoo swoons a little _more_ ). “–baby girl, I will do the best I can! No mercy to Ranger Byun!” 

Kyungsoo laughs, and caresses her cheeks (consciously this time). “You do just that, sweetheart.”

And Kyungsoo has to pretend that the brief dumbstruck look on Chanyeol’s face before she embarks on her _No Mercy to Baekhyun!_ Mission by typing furiously on her screen with a super focused expression is a look that he wants to see on his girlfriend’s face more often.

(True enough, Chanyeol’s phone explodes with Baekhyun’s never ending texts a while later and in the midst of laughing over them while trying to keep their excitement down because the other bus passengers are napping in the bus, Yixing’s text comes in. 

And it’s typed in the same exact words that Kyungsoo had predicted. 

The pilots _almost_ get themselves kicked off the bus for cackling like deranged witches.)

 

\---

 

South Korea, or Seoul specifically, hasn’t been Kyungsoo’s home in almost eight years now. He hasn’t stepped foot in his homeland for a reason that doesn’t have people addressing him as _Ranger Do_. He’s been to Busan a couple of times for pilot-related activities in the Academy where he had graduated from, and to Jeju thrice to fend off stubborn Kaijus ( _who seem to love Jeju hallabong_ , Sehun jokes). Other than those two places, Kyungsoo never has chances to visit South Korea. And he wouldn’t want to, anyway. Not when he no longer has a home or any one there.

And so, Kyungsoo treats Nagasaki as his permanent home. It wasn’t hard to do so, since Marshall Joonmyeon was more than welcoming, taking it upon himself to orientate him, Seungsoo, and Chanyeol, to how his dome functioned, while Satan Heart’s assigned maintenance crew were, thankfully, extremely friendly people. Kyungsoo _knows_ that he’s learnt more about Jaegers and Kaijus and Shatterdomes around the world from his colleagues at the dome than the lecturers back in the Academy. He’s just glad that he didn’t have to pay school fees to attend; it’d be such a waste of money if that was true. 

But living in Nagasaki hadn’t been all roses and no thorns along the way. The initial adaptation was tough, since Kyungsoo has made himself comfortable in the Academy, and the way things work in a Shatterdome is _vastly_ different from how the Academy does. A mistake in the Academy would only lose you a demerit point, but Kyungsoo reckoned that even if you lost a thousand of such points, they’d never kick you out because that was how _desperate_ the world was for Jaeger pilots. It’s a different scenario in a Shatterdome. A mistake would lose you a demerit point, but what is a measly point compared to the devastating number of people you’ve indirectly murdered because of a single (and usually preventable) mistake. What is a point compared to the overwhelming guilt and shame that fucks you up for an indefinite amount of time because of what you _could_ and _should_ have done in that particular moment to prevent the unnecessary deaths of nameless people you were ordered to protect. Get the picture now? 

And Kyungsoo had initially hated himself, his young self for glorifying Jaeger pilots when now that he had become one, he finally understood the smiles that never reach the pilots’ eyes. 

Kyungsoo was lucky, though. He had Seungsoo and Chanyeol with him, and they make _everything_ so much better, so much more tolerant, and so much easier for Kyungsoo. And he knows that he’s lucky, for he had witnessed how his friends had struggled when they first arrived at Nagasaki. Baekhyun, Jongin, and Sehun came straight from the Academy too, just like Kyungsoo, Seungsoo, and Chanyeol, but they didn’t know one another back then; Jongin and Sehun were distrustful of each other, bickering over little things and it got so bad at one point that Joonmyeon threatened to decommission them both because _it’s clear that you two are unfit and unsuitable to be pilots_. That was a much needed wake-up call, and the rest was history. (Sometimes Kyungsoo wishes Joonmyeon had kicked them out—there’s only so much _unnecessary_ noise he can withstand at night.) Baekhyun arrived shortly after he, Seungsoo, and Chanyeol did. It was approximately a week of shyness and meekness on Baekhyun’s part, before he suddenly barged into the trio’s friendship and remade it into a square. Yet, Kyungsoo saw brief flashes of _something_ in his new friend’s eyes and that Baekhyun’s smiles never seemed genuine. It was only when he had unknowingly stumbled onto a private conversation between Joonmyeon and Baekhyun in the Marshall’s quarters did Kyungsoo find out that if Baekhyun doesn’t acquire a co-pilot by the end of his third month, he’d be decommissioned because that would mean that there was absolutely no one compatible with him. Fortunately, Yixing arrived from Hong Kong two weeks before the deadline. The way Baekhyun’s entire face and body reacted to the arrival of his new co-pilot was an image of Baekhyun that Kyungsoo would never want to forget.

Seoul may have been the place where he was brought up by his parents, and Kyungsoo knows that he’d never be able to fully sever the ties he has with his hometown, but Nagasaki is the place where he _grew_ up alongside his brother, friends, and colleagues. And if you ask Kyungsoo which he prefers, he’d reply in a heartbeat. 

“Nagasaki.”

“What about Nagasaki, Soo?” 

The sudden interruption of Chanyeol’s voice snaps Kyungsoo out of his thoughts, and he quickly shakes his head, expression a little wistful. “Nothing. I was just… mm, thinking about how similar Nagasaki and Seoul look.” Kyungsoo lifts his head then, and gestures to the view before him. 

The Han River lays quietly in front of him, water flowing in a direction that Kyungsoo cannot make out from where he’s currently seated on the grass and beneath a tree. A backdrop of Seoul’s concrete jungle overlooks it, and the metal and glass that most buildings are constructed of reminds Kyungsoo of Jaegers. He glances between the Han and its backdrop, and a small, crooked smile forms on Kyungsoo’s face. How eerily similar; the way the Han seems to be protected by the concrete jungle is the same in how Jaegers protect their designated region. Guess Seoul really isn’t all that different from Nagasaki after all, despite the different countries. 

Kyungsoo feels Chanyeol even before he hears her, her head dropping gently onto his shoulder as her hands loosely circle one of his arms. “I like Nagasaki better, though. And don’t ask me why because I don’t know. It’s just… a feeling.” 

Ah. Kyungsoo understands. He just went through a bunch of thoughts to get to that epiphany, too, before Chanyeol suddenly dragged him out of there without warning. But while Chanyeol gets to this conclusion through a feeling, Kyungsoo got to it through reasoning. (Well, he’d always been the more brainy one between the two of them.) He doesn’t tell Chanyeol those reasons, though. Just nods and continues to look out at the beauty that is the Han River. 

After a couple of minutes of comfortable silence, Chanyeol asks, “If you could come back here, come back to South Korea again, would you?” 

Kyungsoo feels Chanyeol’s eyes on him. “Hmm.” He tilts his head from side to side, as if knocking his head around for an answer. “No, I wouldn’t,” Kyungsoo finally says, turning his head to look at Chanyeol. Her eyes are impossibly bright, irises a light shade of brown that he can clearly identify in the gentle sunlight permeating the leaves of the tree beaming onto her face. He holds a hand up, and the shadow of his hand forms on Chanyeol’s face. 

Grateful, Chanyeol gifts Kyungsoo with a pretty smile which Kyungsoo reciprocates with one of his own. Then she asks, “Why not? You were born in Seoul, and we’re technically still citizens of South Korea y’know.” The pretty smile falters just a little bit. 

Kyungsoo’s smile falters a little, too. “I would still come back here, since what you said is correct, but not in the near future. Probably a decade or more, or even a couple of years after that.” The smile fades, and a thoughtful expression replaces it. “I don’t think I would be ready to step foot into the country where I lost almost everyone and everything I’ve ever known. I might not show it, but I’m actually trying very hard to not scream every five minutes because being here, in the city where I was brought up in, where everyone and everything that I used to know _once_ existed, drains me. Being in South Korea fucking _kills me so much_ on the inside.” 

The thoughtful expression had vanished the moment Kyungsoo mentioned how he’s not screaming and tears suddenly prick at his eyes. _Ugh._ He’s tearing up. His reflexive blinks causes the tears to dislodge themselves from the corners and they roll down his face. Chanyeol’s hands cup his face in an instant. 

“Now it’s your turn to break down huh, Soo?” teases Chanyeol, her thumbs lightly grazing over Kyungsoo’s eyelids, motioning for them to close. Kyungsoo feels her slightly calloused fingers swiping and running lightly all over his face, probably directing and wiping away his stray tears. A finger lingers on his lips, quivering against them. 

“Are you cold?” Kyungsoo abruptly asks, and he hears a sharp inhale before the weight on his lips disappears. Chanyeol must have been surprised. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you. Can I open my eyes now, Yeol?” 

The way Chanyeol chose to write her reply on Kyungsoo’s palm— _yes_ —instead of verbalising it causes Kyungsoo to chuckle. He slowly opens his eyes, letting the brightness of the 2PM sun into them and it doesn’t take long for a high definition Chanyeol to appear in his vision. Kyungsoo dumbly says, “Hi.” 

Chanyeol’s laugh is worth every ounce of embarrassment that Kyungsoo felt with that dumb greeting his gut told him to say. And following this reward, Kyungsoo reckons that he can trust his gut one more time. He searches his jacket for his handphone. 

“What are you doing?” 

“Looking for my handphone. I want to snap a shot of you laughing.” 

The shriek that accompanies the exact moment his handphone emerges from one of the numerous pockets of his jacket should have warned Kyungsoo. Instead, he had mistaken Chanyeol’s shriek to be that of an agreement rather than an objection. As a result, he loses his handphone to Chanyeol who’s jumped up from beside him, and has the gadget held high above her head. There is no way Kyungsoo can reach that height. He’d tried (and failed).

“Chanyeol…” So, Kyungsoo resorts to whining instead. He stands up too, because the maximum angle in which his head can tilt upwards to be able to look at his tall girlfriend’s face while seated on the grass isn’t enough for him to do so. Kyungsoo stretches his arms, hands making the grabby actions he finds adorable when Chanyeol does it, and whines again. “Yeol, give it back.” 

“Nuh uh uh. You’re not taking any photographs of me. I look super ugly right now.” Chanyeol shakes her head, her untied hair following the movement. In Kyungsoo’s eyes, she looks like a shaggy dog. Perhaps Kyungsoo should bring her to a proper salon while they’re still in Seoul, instead of patronising _Byun’s Professional Haircutting Services_ back in Nagasaki where the service is everything but professional. “And I have not given you any permission to photograph me, so if I were to unlock your phone, I shouldn’t find any photos of– YAH, DO KYUNGSOO!”

And the tip of Kyungsoo’s nose meets with the screen of his phone. There’s something displayed on it, and Kyungsoo’s eyes crosses while trying to make out what it is. His eyes begin to hurt, and Kyungsoo pushes the phone away. “Sheesh, what are you showing me?” He asks, as he rubs at his aching eyes. 

“ME!” Chanyeol screeches, and Kyungsoo suppresses the movement of his hands as they almost reach up to cover his poor ears. He gingerly opens his eyes and a familiar photograph of Chanyeol fills his sight. He laughs softly. In his peripheral vision, Chanyeol doesn’t look too happy. “It’s not a laughing matter! Tell me why you have this! And how you even managed to snap it!” 

On Kyungsoo’s screen is an image of a grinning Chanyeol in her Drivesuit, her helmet tucked under an arm, while the other was lifted up, fingers on that hand folded into a ‘V’. It was taken on the day where Chanyeol co-piloted with Kyungsoo for the first time. (Yes, it was on that angst-filled day.) They’ve just returned to the dome with Lys Halo, but even before Chanyeol could step out of the ConnPod and head to Satan Heart’s locker room, she was surrounded by ‘adoring fans’ who requested that she model her Drivesuit. It was then did Yifan discreetly slide Kyungsoo’s phone into his hands, winked, and stood in front of Kyungsoo like nothing happened. Kyungsoo had been taken aback for a second, before he registered Yifan’s motive and secretly snapped a shot while the others distracted her. Turned out, _everyone_ had been in on the plan for Kyungsoo to snap that precious shot. 

“Never mind how I managed to,” Kyungsoo says while waving a hand dismissively. He fixes his eyes on the image, tracing the lines of Chanyeol’s face before trailing down the curves of her body that the black Drivesuit clearly accentuated. Heat attacks his cheeks as Kyungsoo thinks back to the previous night… and he swallows deeply because blood seems to flowing southwards all of a sudden. _Shit._ “You know what, never mind about it at all.” Kyungsoo hastily says and he makes to grab the phone. 

He misses. 

“Your face is red– _oh god Do Kyungsoo_! You perv!” 

“W-Wha– I am not!” 

“Yes, you are!” Chanyeol shrieks back. She directs her attention back to Kyungsoo’s phone and a second later, she holds it up to Kyungsoo’s face again. Her finger slides across the screen, and different photographs of Chanyeol consecutively appear. The heat burning on Kyungsoo’s face begins to _sear_. “What is the meaning of _all these_?!” 

Kyungsoo drops his head. He’s caught redhanded by the main character in almost all of the available photographs in his phone’s camera roll, and that is just utterly embarrassing. Kyungsoo mumbles, “Uh, no meaning, I suppose.” He sneaks a peek at Chanyeol’s face. The dark expression on her face is enough to get Kyungsoo to drop his eyes once more. “You’re angry.”

Chanyeol lets out a scoff, “Of course I am! These photos were probably taken without my permission and–” Sounds of Chanyeol probably tapping on the screen. “–eh, besides that Drivesuit photo, the rest are of me… smiling?” 

The disbelief in Chanyeol’s tone gives Kyungsoo the impression that perhaps it’s safe to look up now, and when he does, the sight of his girlfriend looking surprised and a little awestruck greets him. Kyungsoo can’t help but smile. “Yeah, most of them are of you smiling. Because your smile is so pretty, you know that?” 

Chanyeol’s silence tells Kyungsoo that it’s probably safe to take one step towards her, which Kyungsoo does. He peeks over the top of his phone to see Chanyeol sliding through photographs of her, stopping at every alternate image to zoom in on her face. Chanyeol’s unique brand of happiness and delight is visibly splashed all on her face whenever she smiles. It’s addicting and beautiful to look at, Chanyeol’s smiling face, and it’s no wonder Kyungsoo wants to keep some of it forever through the form of shots. (Tell no one but Kyungsoo regularly sifts through the album to admire how gorgeous his girlfriend looks. He stays slightly longer at the Drivesuit shot, though.)

“I take it that you’re not mad anymore since you’re kinda smiling now, too?” 

And Chanyeol _is_ smiling, but Kyungsoo knows that it’s an unconscious one if the surprise that flickers in her eyes is evidence enough. The smile immediately dissolves, though, when Kyungsoo teasingly asks her, “Besides, I’m sure you have photographs of me in your phone too, right, _Yeollie_?” 

It’s adorable, how Chanyeol’s cheeks instantly go red and she meekly digs out her phone and politely hands it over to Kyungsoo. He smirks and presses on the home button; a frontal photo of him in the ConnPod, seemingly attaching parts of its machinery together, appears. To say that he’s not surprised, Kyungsoo would be lying. His brows rise, but he doesn’t say anything. When he unlocks the phone, the surprise grows and Kyungsoo’s brows rise _higher_. This time, he says something. “Um, Yeol? Should I be disturbed that you have a shot of my exposed back while I’m in a towel?” Kyungsoo looks up. “Yeol?”

Of course Chanyeol would _not_ be looking at him. Her flushed cheeks are evidence enough to know that she’s thoroughly embarrassed. Kyungsoo isn’t angry, not in the least. He’s just… shocked, startled, surprised actually, because _okay… my girlfriend managed to snap a shot of me looking like that_. Kyungsoo should stop coming out of his showers wrapped in a towel; it’s time to bring his clothes into the bathroom. But no, wait. Kyungsoo does bring his clothes into the bathroom whenever he showers. So why, and how did Chanyeol…

“Was this taken on the day you stole my clothes from the bathroom and I had to come out looking like that?” 

At least Chanyeol has the decency to look guilty, as she nods. “Um, yes…?” 

Wow. Kyungsoo’s mind is blown, again. His girlfriend is so, so sly. Chanyeol’s innocence level just went down another notch, and Kyungsoo _really_ should reevaluate his perceptions of people. Especially Chanyeol’s. Innocence? _What innocence?_

“Are you going to make me delete it?” 

Chanyeol’s timid voice prompts Kyungsoo to look up from the image (which is set as the home background). Her self-reproached expression tugs at Kyungsoo’s heartstrings, but he’s actually made a decision regarding Chanyeol’s question even before she asked. It’s pretty obvious, if you think about it. Which is why Kyungsoo shakes his head and says, “Nope, I’m not going to. It’s honestly super embarrassing to know that your girlfriend has such a shot of you, but you snapped it.” He shrugs. “And besides, my photographs of you were taken in secrecy, too. So, fair enough.” Then, Kyungsoo shoots Chanyeol a grin. 

“Okay.” Chanyeol exhales, releasing a breath that Kyungsoo didn’t know she had been withholding. “But, to be fair, I think you should check out my camera roll to see the shots I have of you.” The way Chanyeol sucks her bottom lip into her mouth before biting on it, and how her eyes glint, should have warned Kyungsoo. 

Instead, he only gets shocked when he opens her camera roll and the first image—of him wrapped in a towel but it’s a _frontal_ shot this time—immediately gets him yelling, “PARK CHANYEOL!” 

Kyungsoo pretends that Chanyeol’s giggle is not precious and that her face when she bursts into laughter (at the expense of Kyungsoo’s explosion of rage) is not photoworthy. 

 

\---

 

“Soo?”

“Hmm?”

“I miss home.” 

“... I do, too. But we’re not too far away now, probably a couple of minutes more since we’re in a copter.” 

“Okay.”

“...”

“...”

“...”

“Soo?”

“Yes, Yeol?”

“I… want to ask Joon– Marshall Joonmyeon if they can let Yixing and Baekhyun, or Jongin and Sehun off for a short vacation like we did.”

“Why?”

“It doesn’t seem fair that we went, while they didn’t.”

“Mm, true. Where do you think they’ll go, though?”

“Yixing can bring Baekhyun back to Hong Kong! Jongin and Sehun… back to South Korea?”

“You do just that. I’ll support you from the sidelines.”

“What! You’re not going to ask him together with me?!” 

“I’m not. Why would I? Either of them leaving means extra Kaijus for us to fight, you do realise that, right?” 

“But– But they fought _our_ share of Kaijus! They could be fighting one right now!”

“I’m pretty sure they’re not. We were only gone for three days; I doubt any Kaiju surfaced–”

“Sorry to eavesdrop and intrude on your conversation, Rangers, but there have been Kaiju sightings during your absence. In fact, Lys Halo was deployed just before this copter was. And yesterday, both Ventus Shadow and Lys Halo were sent to intercept two Kaijus headed towards China.” 

“...”

“See, Soo!”

“...”

“We’ve got to relieve them of their duties for at least three days! I propose letting Yixing and Baekhyun go on their break first, since they’re the ones who handled more Kaijus. Do you agree with me, Soo?”

“... No–”

“Aww, c’mon Soo.”

“–but do I have a choice? You know I can never out-argue you.”

“YAAAASSS! Okay, then this means you’ll stand next to me while I bring this up to Joonmyeon–”

“Wait, what? No–”

“–and I know for _sure_ he’ll agree because he trusts you more than me and that is actually pretty sad but it’s fine.”

“... You don’t need Marshall Joonmyeon’s trust when you have mine.” 

“Cheesy much, _Ranger Do_?” 

“Stop giggling, _Ranger Park_. You’re getting saliva on my jacket, and that is just disgusting. Get away from me.”

“Aww, I know how you don’t mean that. Instead, you probably mean _come here babe and let Soo-soo give you a bigggggg hug because Yeollie deserves all the hugs in the world_.”

“... You’re gross.”

“Tch–”

“But, yeah, that’s exactly what I meant. So– _oof! Oh god, don’t. Don’t leave your slobber all over my face, don’t you– Don’t you dare to– ACK PARK CHANYEOL GET YOUR TONGUE OFF MY NOSE!_ ” 

 

(“Soo?”

“... What.”

“Are you mad?”

“... You think–”

“I love you, sweetheart, and I wouldn’t exchange anything in the world for you.”

“... Not even for hotteok?”

“Um, well, maybe that–”

“Park Chanyeol!”

“–I’m kidding! I won’t!”

“You better not.”

“I won’t. Hotteok won’t keep me alive and _satisfied_ like you do.”

“...”

“You’re turning red, Soo~”

“Shut up!”

“Red like a tomato– _umph!_ ”

“Talk any more and I’ll kiss you to death.”

“That’s actually a pretty romantic way to die. I accept. Come here and kiss me to death, baby boy–”

“I love you. And I wouldn’t exchange you for anything in the world, either.” 

“...”

“...”

“... Not even for a chance to delete this shot of you looking all serious while confessing your _undying_ love for me?”

“When did y– Yeah, not even that.”

“OKAY THAT’S IT I’M KISSING YOU TO DEATH BECAUSE YOU’RE SO FUCKING CHEESY SO C’MERE LOVER BOY LET YOUR YEOLLIE KISS YOU TO DEATHHHHHHH.”)

 

_“If there is any possible consolation in the tragedy of losing someone we love very much, it’s the necessary hope that perhaps it was for the best.”_

_— Paul Coelho (The Witch of Portobello)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first attempt at smut turned out to be mild dub-con (what even). please evaluate my skill, thank you, so as to see if jen should write smut in her future stories. 
> 
> also, YAASSS finally off my chest. now, i'm leaning towards writing that baekxing + lu han. but, life. but, uni. (we'll see how.)
> 
> please, if you miss me and want to befriend me, do so on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/soobiscuits?lang=en). i do not bite. i only scream about the existence that is do kyungsoo.


End file.
